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In response to my prompt, on or as close as possible to 31 August 2018, at 8pm, poets drafted a poem at their chosen coast; each draft was given location, date and time as a title, and poets sent a few lines to me representing the essence of their writing. 

 One line of text was selected from each poet to create a litany of the coast around the UK and Ireland and beyond. For my residency as Artist in Residence at Poetry in Aldeburgh, the litany resulted in a concertina journal of 96 lines tracing the coasts of the UK, Ireland, and beyond.

 Each line of the litany was also translated into abstract works resulting in 48 stitched pieces for display.

The artworks were depicted in the order of the litany: the journey around the coast starts at the Pier Head in Liverpool, tours the coast of Northern Ireland, travels around Ireland including Galway, Kerry, Cork, and Wicklow before travelling to Wales, Somerset, Cornwall, along the south coast, west to east, and up the east coast to Whitby, and beyond to Scotland, east to west from Aberdeen to Loch Fyne, over to the Isle of Arran before returning to Southport and Crosby in Merseyside.

It was a pleasure to include four poets located outside of the UK (South of France, Geneva, Turkey, and California), at the time of writing

The slides show a selection of the 48 art works

Coast to Coast to Coast: map, line, and stitch. Stitch Translations— poetry into stitch       

Maria will give an illustrated talk about her project which was shown at the South Lookout at Poetry in Aldeburgh in November. The talk will be followed by a shared reading of the graphics piece created from the lines written at locations around the UK, Ireland, and beyond, and will conclude with some of Maria’s own recent work including that created as part of her residency at Aldeburgh. There will be an opportunity for questions, and a chance to see the 48 textile pieces. Copies of the limited edition concertina journal will be available for sale. 

I’m delighted to announce the winners and runners-up of Coast to Coast to Coast’s second competition:

Runners-up:
Maureen Boyle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maureen_Boyle

Pam Thompson. https://pamthompsonpoetry.com

Susannah Violette

Finola Scott
Mara Adamitz Scrupe. http://scrupe.com

Winners:
Lydia Harris and Isabelle Bermudez

Winners will receive limited edition hand-stitched copies of their journals at a launch in Liverpool next summer.

Previous winners earlier this year were, Jane Lovell and Rebecca Gethin

Happy to launch our second mini portfolio competition: open until September 15th  

The launch of Issue 3 at our new venue on Falkner square was a beautiful event introduced by Michael Allen who shared something of the history of the flat with its literary heritage. Carole Bromley, Pam Thompson, Michael Ferry, Rachael Smart, Mandy Macdonald, Peter Daniels, and Sandra Burnett read some of their work, and Michael and I read poems from those who couldn't make the launch*.

Thanks to Maria McManus (http://laganonline.co/review-maria-mcmanus-available-light/), and Keith Acheson for ideas, invitation and welcome. It was a privilege to create journals for Belfast Book Festival and to hear so many of the poets, each with their distinctive voice and writerly concerns: John Mee, Heather Richardson, Stephanie Conn, Therese Kieran, Michael Farry, Annette Skade, Moyra Donaldson, Attracta Fahy, Paul Jeffcutt, Olive Broderick, Georgi Gill, Daragh Breen and Jane Robinson.

Coast to Coast to Coast, a hand stitched poetry journal with fabric cover will launch in Liverpool. The journal, which aims to be as much a piece of art as a poetry journal without the art or poetry being compromised came out of ideas I’d been working on with Michael during the time we were writing, reading and running some workshops in galleries on Merseyside.