Events: Poetry Ireland Partnership 2008/09

Poetry Ireland and School Across Borders Creative Writing project

Every child has the right to freedom of expression: to say, write and draw what she or he thinks ...

We are delighted to inform you about a new and exciting partnership between Schools Across Borders and Poetry Ireland.

We piloted this new programme over the 2008/9 school year and both organisations are delighted to start a new programme with this year’s students and are looking forward to the products of their creativity.

Empowerment
Schools Across Borders is an organisation which aims to empower young people to form their own opinions and express them freely. Communication between participating students and of course communication with the wider world is one key element of the programme. Therefore it was a fantastic opportunity to team up with Poetry Ireland to tap into the creative resources of our participating students in all locations of the project: Ireland, Northern Ireland, Israel and Palestine.

While providing them with the opportunity explore their own potentials they also received professional guidance and recognition.

Themes
Key elements of the Schools Across Borders programme are the themes of Interdependence and the indivisibility of Human rights and Universal Values.

We encourage the students to understand and value their rights and the power within. For this project the students were completely free to choose the form and the subject matter of their work. They were given the option of choosing a theme from a suggested list. And with the choice being theirs the work was as more varied in form and matter than we could have hoped for, showing a great energy, capacity and creativity in the students.

Mentoring
The students were free to choose any subject and form of writing and the submitted pieces definitely showed a great variety of style and matter. The initial part of the programme consisted of the students submitting their work via email to the writer, poet and publisher Seamus Cashman, who received pieces from 33 students from Dublin, Dundalk and Belfast as well as from Jerusalem and Hebron.

The great benefit for the students in this programme was the fact that they had a virtual mentor in Seamus Cashman who through the medium of the internet helped the students with their work by providing them with feedback and constructive suggestions on how to develop their pieces.

Creative Writing workshops
The second part of the programme then featured two workshops in Dublin during the separate visits of the Israeli and Palestinian students which also included visiting students form Dundalk and Belfast. The workshops facilitated by Seamus Cashman showed the young writers new and inspiring techniques on creating literature and it provided them with a chance to discuss their work in person.

All participating students felt that the workshops were not only enjoyable but they all took new skills and the feeling of having learnt something new from this experience.

Adjudication and Recognition
Subsequently the students were asked to submit their final and complete pieces for adjudication to Seamus Cashman and poet Enda Wyley. Although this programme was not set out to be a competition we felt the student’s creative work deserved recognition. Some of the students produced such extraordinary work that they not only received a certificate of merit, but may now be viewed directly on the Poetry Ireland. website.

MERITS
Ciara O’Connor (Dundalk) "Crossing Borders" (fiction)
Davy Shaw (Dundalk) "September 19th 1944" (fiction)
Felix Berger (Dundalk) "A day in the life of a paramedic" (non-fiction)
Mark McCabe (Dundalk) "Nights like this" (fiction)
Sean McKenna (Dundalk) " Nothing else to blues" (song)
Olivia Hicks (Dublin) "The other we don’t know" (fiction)
Murali Rathinasabapathirajendran (Dublin) "Little princess" / "You can do it" (poems)
Florian Sanchez (Dublin) " One day" (poem)
Mustafa Ramadan (Dublin) "To the…." (poem)
Joanne Collins (Dublin) " Spiralling out of Control" (fiction)
Rand Tahboub (Hebron) "My freedom" / "Between two worlds" (poems)
Nahir …… (Jerusalem) "Meet down here" (poem)
David Heller (Jerusalem) "A day in the life" (poem)
Shaked Gur (Jerusalem) " 5 years ago" (poem)
Shalev Paller (Jerusalem) "An eye for an eye" (poem)
Yarden Ishai (Jerusalem) " Without you" (poem)
Bar Shitrit (Jerusalem) "All the tears have dropped" (poem)

QUOTES FROM PARTICIPATING STUDENTS

Rand Tahboub (Hebron)
While I was in Ireland I had an opportunity to participate in a writing workshop with the writer Seamus Cashman. The aim for this workshop was to improve our writing skills and how to think while writing. It was a great opportunity for me to meet wit somebody that has so much more knowledge than I do and give me the benefit of his experience all the way he had gone through. In this workshop we were given the basics of writing and thinking while writing all in an entertaining way. Through and after finishing this workshop I’ve realised that my writing skills have improved and I’m looking forward to improving it more by reading the book he gave me and I am trying to follow his steps to be as successful as he is.

Murali Rathinasabapathirajendran (Dublin)
The poetry workshop and the project in the whole is a great opportunity for anyone to express themselves as an artist. It was not only about writing poems. It was a lot more than that. I have come to know more about myself, as an artist, through this project. I discovered talents in myself that I didn't even know I possessed. I also got to improve my skills as a writer thanks to Seamus Cashman and even the other students who participated. That poetry workshop I had was no mere workshop as it pushed me to my limits of imagination and through the exercises that were given, I realised many new things that a regular person could never realise. From my point of view, this was an opportunity of a lifetime and I'm very grateful that I was a part of it. 

Louise Kincaid (Belfast)
I thought it was very enjoyable. To have your work looked over by a professional poet was a chance of a lifetime. Being able to spend a day with other young people who share the same passion for writing as me was amazing. It was an experience ill never forget, one I’m very thankful for.

Shaked Gur (Jerusalem)
It was a nice and interesting experience and I felt that I can show “the world” a bit from my reality and also share my writing skills (for the first time in English)

Mustafa Ramadan (Dublin)
I have personally thought it was a great experience and I was able to get great thing out of it

David Heller (Jerusalem)
I took so much from this workshop, I really enjoyed it and ever since I have been writing poems much more often... Enjoy life, live it to its fullest, enjoy every piece of it and for peace use it.

Natasha Walker (Belfast)
I really enjoyed the Poetry Ireland workshop as it helped me gain a greater confidence in myself through working with Seamus Cashman and students of different backgrounds.

Olivia Hicks (Dublin)
So... the schools across borders writer's workshop was a lot of fun. It was the first time I'd been to a writing workshop, and unlike other creative types, Seamus Cashman was really open and really modest, considering how much he knew and had done in regards to writing. Obviously not all methods of writing stories and poetry is for everyone, but trying something different (for me, that was poetry) is a good experience for all aspiring writers to have. Also, the whole mentor idea was really cool. When you force friends to read your work you never get a critical analysis, and I think it's important for writers to show their work to people who might not necessarily like it. And I like the way we would all have the same starting point, (e.g. a picture of red squares) and we all came out with completely different ideas and works. It was like group therapy, but the fun kind!