Bookworms get all creative at gallery

The Grundy Art Gallery’s National Poetry Day celebrations saw guests young and old meet with local children’s book author Dan Worsley to decode ‘secret messages’ at the gallery on Queen Street.

Literature fans then took to the streets with prize-winning poet Mandy Coe to discover a selection of creative shop-window displays – all based on poems written at home in the resort.

Blackpool Central Library staff worker Carrie Singleton, who helped organise the event, said: “In the run-up to the day we had poetry masterclasses with Mandy Coe around the theme of ‘messages’.

“We took everyone who attended the workshops on the trail around the town to show them the poems they had written in the shop windows, which was great because some people didn’t even know their poems had been chosen.”

The shop-window poems, which can be found on Topping Street and Church Street as well as outside the Winter Gardens, will be on display until next month, and feature work from pupils at South Shore Academy and Highfield Leadership Academy.

Miss Singleton said: “National Poetry Day is all about getting people engaged in poetry and inspiring a love of the arts in young 
children.

“We’re trying to inspire a love of poetry here in Blackpool because it’s not an easy sell. People don’t engage with it as much because it’s not the cool thing to do.

“Luckily we do have a small but strong following here in Blackpool.

“Some of the poems written by the children turned out really good and the level they are working at is amazing. You’d be amazed at the feelings coming out through the poetry.

“Some of them have even said they’ll keep on writing poetry in their own time.”