09Oct 2022 by Rogan Wolf

New Collection – Poems for Rising Ten

poems for display in schools, Poems for...the waiting room, public poetry, Uncategorized
This project's latest collection was launched in October 2022. "Poems for Rising Ten" is for children approaching the end of their time in primary school. There are 25 poems in all, each one accompanied by art work. In most cases, the images are not  literal illustrations as such. I think they offer something richer than illustration, carrying or suggesting the spirit of the words, rather than prescribing shapes for them. They are by Rachel Stevens who has given her work free to this project. The poems have been uploaded here on this website. As with all the other poems we reproduce, they are available free of charge. To access the new poems for viewing and/or downloading, you'll need to register with us. For that, see the horizontal menu along the…
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18Dec 2018 by Rogan Wolf

Poems Displayed on Plasma Screens

poems for display in schools, Poems for the NHS, Poems for...one world, Poems for...the waiting room, public poetry, Uncategorized
The plasma display screen is now common in all kinds of public settings, including schools, libraries and healthcare waiting rooms. So here is yet another form of screen for the eye to rest on, when already there are so many. And is "resting" the right word ? The screens' contents tend not be passive. Many reach out and seek to arrest the eye, both for good and for ill. They have the power to penetrate minds. For ill and for good. Recently, I was sitting in a village surgery waiting room and the large display screen there showed a succession and range, not just of health notices, but also of local resources, opportunities, activities, things supportive of health and humanity in individuals and community. It was full of real interest,…
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27Jul 2018 by Rogan Wolf

Poems for…the wall in Bristol, Summer 2018

70th birthday of the NHS, poems for display in schools, Poems for the NHS, Poems for...one world, Poems for...the waiting room, Poems in Turkish, poems on mental health, public poetry, Uncategorized
When "Poems for... the wall" was piloted in London twenty years ago, it was a local affair. Some small poem-posters were put up in NHS waiting rooms in Hammersmith and Kensington. However, as the project became quickly better known and demand spread, it lost contact with an immediate locality. The poems went out far and wide, around the UK and then beyond, first by post and later digitally, downloaded from this website. In those circumstances, the co-ordinator's bike tended to stay at home and I knew rather little of what actually happened to the poems, once they arrived at their destination. But now I'm in Bristol and the bike is out again. Earlier this hot Summer of 2018, two local schools exhibited poems from the "Self at Sea" collection as…
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10Jun 2018 by Rogan Wolf

What’s Italian for “Poems for…the Wall” ?

poems for display in schools, Poems for...one world, poems on learning disability, poems on mental health, public poetry, Uncategorized
A really nice article about this project has recently been published in a good Italian arts website called "Margutte." The piece was initially written in English, mostly for this site. But then Margutte's editor, Silvia Pio, edited the text  of the English with great skill and good judgement, making it an article. She then translated it into her own Italian and uploaded the article in both languages. Click on http://www.margutte.com/?p=26369&lang=en for the English version. (NB. The link only goes live once you have clicked on "Read More").
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04Jun 2018 by Rogan Wolf

Reaching into Bristol – new partnerships

poems for display in schools, Poems for...one world, poems on mental health, public poetry, Uncategorized
Based these days in Bristol, "Poems for...the wall" has started to work in partnership with the Bristol Poetry Institute. The BPI is based in the literature department of Bristol University. The BPI has not only procured some seed money for us, but has also been greatly helpful in providing local contacts and opportunities. Thanks to that sponsorship, a small exhibition of the project's bilingual poem-posters is currently on display in a popular university café called Beacon House, near the Wills Memorial Building at the top of  Queens's Road. For, like many another university of the present day, Bristol University brings together students and staff from all over the world, representing a huge range of different mother-tongues. It means, of course, that large numbers of young people are spending a great…
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05Dec 2017 by Rogan Wolf

Another way for poems to speak

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  A busy gathering place for students, staff and visitors from all over the world is not where you'd normally expect to find an exhibition of poster-poems. But if all those poems were bilingual, with many different languages represented, written originally by poets often famous in their own countries ? That might be quite an eloquent statement, quite apart from what the words themselves were saying. The collage of photographs here records a small exhibition of bilingual poem-posters that has recently been showing in a public setting managed by Bristol University. The exhibition went up under the stewardship of the university's Bristol Poetry Institute. Half way up the collage, towards the left, you can see a background photograph of all the poems together displayed on the wall. Four of them…
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29Nov 2017 by Rogan Wolf

“Poems for the wall” breaks surface in the south west

poems for display in schools, Poems for...one world, Poems for...the waiting room, poems on learning disability, poems on mental health, public poetry, Uncategorized
A very good international magazine called "Resurgence," based in Devon, did a feature on the project in August this year. Click here for the online version. And during November, an exhibition of the project's bilingual poems went up in a busy public setting run by Bristol University. The poems make a strong public statement of mutual tolerance. Tolerance ? More than tolerance. They celebrate our difference, richly. They glory in it. They make poetry of it. Over the next few months, we shall be exploring further ways of displaying these poems in Bristol settings, run both by the university and the City Council. "Poems for the wall" has begun working with the Bristol Poetry Institute, based in Bristol University. See their website here.
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24May 2016 by joew

Poems for…Bridges to Anatolia

poems for display in schools, Poems for...one world, Poems for...the waiting room, public poetry, Uncategorized
"Poems for...Bridges to Anatolia" is based largely - though not entirely - on the translation work over the years of the Turkish poet Mevlut Ceylan. Ceylan lived in London for many years and under the title "Core Publications" produced a significant number of booklets that feature and celebrate Turkish poetry. Each is translated into English, the vast majority by Ceylan himself. Some are anthologies, following a theme. Others feature the work of individual Turkish authors. Ceylan's quiet and patient work opens the life of one culture to another and in doing so reveals the distinctness of each but also and more importantly their common humanity. He has built and opened a bridge. The selection offered here took over two years to put together and consists of over twenty poems. It…
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13Nov 2014 by joew

“Poems for…” comes to London for Those who Wait

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CNWL NHS Foundation Trust is one of the largest NHS Trusts in the UK. It provides healthcare services across a wide swathe of north west London and various areas beyond. The Trust has just announced its adoption and funding of a pamphlet of poems and photographs now available free of charge across all its waiting rooms, for people to take away with them if they want. Two thousand copies of the pamphlet have just come back from the printers, and have begun to be distributed. The photographs it contains are striking - both poignant and strong. The poems have been selected from the various collections put together for the "Poems for...the wall" project over the years, described and available on this web-site. They include a significant number of bilingual poems,…
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10Feb 2013 by joew

6 Burmese poems join the “Poems for…One World” collection

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The six poems being published here are all contemporary and have been carefully selected. Several of them have been published already. Two have not. The UK Foreign Office have played an important part in the whole process, though not in the selection. How to view and download the poems For the full collection of six poems, click here. Then scroll down through the six. The poems are also available for individual downloading. Log in on the Home Page (registering first if you haven’t already done so) and then go to “Downloading the Poems” in the left hand margin.  Once there, open up the “Poems for… one world “ collection and you’ll find each of the Burmese poems near the top of the list of contents, under B for Burmese. Click…
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