Output details

Words and Things: Writing Creatively from Objects and Art (authors: Featherstone K, Clayton N, Goodwin M, Tyler Bennett D, Mather J, Utting V), edited by Featherstone K, and Clayton N, published by Leicestershire County Council in 2008.

In a Different Light, four poems written by K Featherstone included in an exhibition of photographs by Zoe Childerley published in 2009.

I Need The Owl: Poetry and the Visual, a short online essay published in August 2010.

These three linked publications are the outcome of related activities, and track the development of my interests in creative pedagogy, ekphrastic poetry and cultural identity during this period.

Initially concerned with working on the cross-curricular creative possibilities of objects and artwork, I observed classroom activity and led workshops making use of these techniques, researched and wrote the related sections of Words and Things, as well as co-editing the guide. This, along with managing and curating the subsequent commissions, led to writing my own ekphrastic work for ‘In A Different Light’.

The work was exhibited at the Whitewall from January to March 2009. The publication is a record of the exhibition, which featured the texts - stencilled on the walls several feet high - next to the images. My poems were the result of my research and creative writing over this period. In particular, I used the photographic images to introduce narratives from India (Laxmi), West Africa (Ananse), the Middle East (the golden calf) and Myanmar (why the crow is black). In doing so, I used a combination of the image and research to situate each in a cultural context, so that the text provides a second ‘lens’ through which the photograph is ‘read’.

I also became interested in the different ways that writers respond to visual art.

Mark Goodwin and I both wrote about the same photograph of an owl, and the essay in Legwork reflects my interest in comparing different approaches and responses to the same brief. The discussion articulates how my poetry includes cultural context and narrative as well as responding to the visual image. It also reflects on how all of these research elements have informed my pedagogical practice as well as my writing.