Introduction This toolkit has been created by The Poetry Society’s Cloud Chamber, an online network where poets and teachers can meet to share ideas, resources, and best practice. Many of the poets we work with are experienced workshop facilitators, but we know that everyone has to start somewhere. Designed for emerging poets who are new to working in schools, this toolkit outlines some ways to get started, including advice from experienced poet-facilitators and resources you can explore. Please do also reach out to us for news about opportunities to take part in shadowing schemes and other training. A Cloud Chamber is a piece of scientific equipment that detects ionising particles by showing the condensation trails, or ‘cloud tracks’, they form when they collide with gaseous mixture in a sealed chamber. It’s a way of bringing to light tiny invisible particles, and tracing what happens when they connect and react. We’re fond of it as a metaphor. Any practising poet, teacher or youth worker is welcome to join Cloud Chamber. We meet quarterly on Zoom and focus on a different theme each session. In a typical session, an experienced facilitator shares ideas for poetry activities, before opening up to the floor for discussion. Supporting resources created around each theme are freely available to Cloud Chamber members. In its pilot year, Cloud Chamber is funded by UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK, as part of the About Us project, which explores the intersection between the arts and STEM subjects.
About the contributors to this toolkit We are grateful to Laura Mucha and Cecilia Knapp for sharing their advice here. Laura Mucha is an award-winning poet, author and children’s advocate. Her writing has been featured on TV, radio and public transport, as well as in hospitals, hospices, prisons, books, magazines and newspapers around the world. Her books include Dear Ugly Sisters (winner of the 2021 NSTBA Award for Poetry), Rita’s Rabbit, Being Me (shortlisted for the CLiPPA Poetry Award 2022), and We Need to Talk About Love/Love Factually. Cecilia Knapp is a poet, playwright and novelist, and Young People’s Laureate for London 2020-21. She won the 2021 Ruth Rendell award and has been shortlisted for the 2022 Forward prize for best single poem, the Rebecca Swift Women’s prize and the Outspoken poetry prize. Her poems have been widely published and anthologised, and her debut collection Peach Pig was published in 2022. She was resident poet at Great Ormond Street Hospital for two years, is lead tutor for the Roundhouse’s prestigious poetry collective, and is an ambassador for mental health charity CALM.
The Poetry Society and Poets in Schools The Poetry Society runs a programme called Poets in Schools, where schools looking for a poet visit contact us and we match them up with a poet to suit their needs. In addition, we have many other education projects that involve sending poets into schools to deliver poetry workshops. These cover a wide range of ages, topics, and areas of the UK.
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Cloud Chamber
