Over the past two weeks we have had the amazing opportunity to create some poetry and
stained glass art through Newcastle University and with professional stained glass artist,
Helen Grierson.

On Thursday 6th July we travelled to The Sill on Hadrian’s wall where we had a presentation
about ‘Poems in the Air’ and learnt about the amazing partnership between Northumberland
National Park and Simon Armitage. We then looked around the centre and saw where our
poems and stained glass were going to be displayed. Afterwards, we walked the short
distance along the wall to Sycamore Gap and learnt about the history of the area and started
to form ideas about our poems.

Some of the poems can be viewed here.

On Tuesday the 11th July we headed to Newcastle University for the day where we first got
to have a tour of the brilliant library facilities and looked at the historical books there. We
then had a lecture by John Chalice, a member of the English Faculty, and a workshop to
help to develop our poetry ideas further and show us many techniques to improve our
poems. The workshop was incredibly helpful to develop the poems and really it helped to
have an experienced writer to suggest improvements.

Finally, on Thursday the 13th July, we went back to Newcastle University where we went on
a nature walk around the university taking brief drawings and notes about what they could
see, hear and smell around the campus site, then walked around the Hatton Gallery. We
then produced stained glass artwork with Helen Grierson, a Northumberland stained glass
artist, using the natural landscape of Hadrian’s Wall and our poems to create some beautiful
stained glass pieces.

It was a truly inspirational and unique experience allowing us to explore our individual
creativity and have fun.

Our work will be exhibited at The Sill from the 11th August until mid-September.