Via The Arts Council...

SEEKING THE BARDS OF BIRKENHEAD

Potential poets are sought on the Mersey Ferry, at a stall on Birkenhead Market, from the YMCA, aboard the Age Concern bus, and in local schools and youth clubs. The Poem for Birkenhead was the idea of members of the Lauries Centre in Central Birkenhead who after seeing the Poem for Liverpool written by Roger McGough and sponsored by Fivearts cities, lobbied to have their own. Birkenhead boy Paul Grady (aka Lily Savage) will open the Lauries Centre in October by reading the Poem for Birkenhead.

Fivearts cities agreed to commission this poem and are delighted to be working once again with Workers Education Association (WEA) to deliver this community-based project. Between Monday 5 to Friday 16 September, award winning poet Jim Bennett will invite people to write one liners on “Birkenhead is…” spending two Wednesdays at Birkenhead market on a stall dedicated to verse. He will cross the Mersey on the Ferry asking budding bards to put pen to paper to create the definitive poem about Birkenhead. The poem will be displayed at the Lauries Centre after the grand opening with Paul Grady.