Eleanor has worked extensively as a local poet in Liverpool and beyond, facilitating creative writing workshops in community settings and schools. She specialises in poetry writing and creative processes with an interest in environments, place and heritage projects but is open to any proposals.
Her PhD is ‘Making Connections: The Work of the Local Poet’.
Eleanor is a sensitive, contentious community writing practitioner with a friendly and creative approach to working with people. She never patronises and always offers a challenge, drawing on her experience as a acclaimed poet to offer participants ways into the writing workshop appropriate for their level of experience. Her hope is that in writing creatively we can all begin to see the world anew and develop our imaginative relationships with each other and the environment.
She has run writing workshops in art galleries, libraries, care homes, playschemes, primary schools, secondary schools, youth clubs, arts centres, universities. Notable venues include a disused steel works in Germany and a cemetery in Blackpool. She has worked with many high profile organisations including Tate Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, Maritime Museum, Liverpool City Council and others across the North West. She has also worked with small-scale grassroots organisations with close community ties including even running workshops for older people at home.
She has worked with The Windows Project offering schools and community workshop as well as freelance on individual bookings.
Below is a selected list of projects and commissioned work including some large scale projects and some small. Many of Eleanor’s poems are written with a specific context in mind and the final poems have been published in ‘Andraste’s Hair’, ‘Eliza and the Bear’ and ‘Blood Child’. Several of Eleanor’s poems have been filmed or broadcast in new contexts and these are included here.
Commissions, Collaborations and Participatory Projects.
The Windows Project Small Press Archive Women’s Writing Workshops. In July 2018, using this large collection of 60s – to date small press poetry zines and magazines as inspiration, Eleanor worked with Liverpool women poets to explore the presence of women in the collection. They made a magazine, Ribbon. Worked in collaboration with Dr Lila Matsumoto from University of Nottingham. Project funded by University of Nottingham Centre for Regional Literature.
The Black Chair Eisteddfod Centenary Festival 2017, Birkenhead. Schools workshops and commissioned poem June-Nov 2017.
‘Water/Creature’, a collaborative poem for performance with artist Justin Coombes. Performed at the Fordham Gallery, a barge on the Thames in association with the Ruskin Art School, Oxford. 11th May 2014.
‘High Tide’ ’: A lyric for folk singer Emily Portman performed at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall as part of the Irish Sea Sessions 2012.
‘Night Tales’: Participative poem for children and workshops, World Museum, Liverpool Aug/Sept 2013.
‘The Witching Hour’: Commissioned poem for anthology, Aug 2013
‘Treasury’: Collaborative poetry and music programme with Rebecca Sharp, Catherine Butterworth and Cait Walker, The Poetry Library, South Bank Centre, London. May, 2013.
‘Mr Seel’s Gardens’: Associated poet for AHRC Connected Communities Research Project. Jan 2012 – Jan 2013
‘In Your Ears and In Your Eyes’: Online collaboration with poet, Adam Steiner for performance Cornerhouse Manchester. Feb, 2012
‘Walls Have Voice’: Workshop leader for site-specific writing sessions and anthology editor for a collection of new writing by local Blackpool writers, August 2012
‘Time to Read’: Commissioned poems ‘Dusk Town’ and ‘Congleton Tapestry’ written with small towns for performances at Runcorn Library and Congleton Library, 04th Oct/29th Nov 2012.
‘Mr Seel’s Garden: Poet-in-residence on an AHRC Connected Communities research project into the history of local food production in Liverpool.
‘’Saltwater’: A short film of the poem by Glenn Emlyn-Richards selected for Zebra Poetryfilm festival, Berlin, Oct, 2012
‘Arne’s Progress’: Sequence of poems exploring the local history of the Mersey region and published in a broadside newspaper illustrated by Desdemona McCannon, sold at Granby Street community market, Toxteth, Liverpool. Jan-May, 2012
Visiting Poet offering writing workshops for Year 5 and 6 at Primary Schools in East Liverpool in association with The Poetry Society, London. 2011
‘Saltwater’: Commissioned poem for ‘Radical Liverpool’, Everyman Theatre, Apr 2011
‘Settlement’: Hidden Door Collaborative Project, Edinburgh, Aug, 2010
Four Poems as Audio Responses: Liverpool Biennial 2010 available to the public to download, Sept, 2010
‘The Orchard’: Mercy Liverpool Biennial Audio Guide, collaborative audio piece including 20 younger writers.
‘Night River’: a short film of my poem by Glenn Emlyn-Richards commissioned for Version Film Festival, Comma Films, Manchester. Touring to international short film festivals. July 2009
Write On Liverpool: Photographic Project, Liverpool Central Library, Nov 2008. Inclusion in photographic exhibition of portraits of Liverpool Poets past and present. Contributed audio reading and prose text published in booklet
‘The Flower Dipped in Ink’: The Fragrant Project, Liverpool Culture Company 2007 but published in Eliza and the Bear, 2008.
