Sea Poetry Workshop

Creative writing session using the sea as our muse. Leap into an ocean of words - All welcome!

Whether you dip, dive, surf, or simply admire our horizons from the clifftops, if you love our ocean, come try your hand at some sea-themed creative writing. A series of prompts & activities this session will get you think about capturing the essence & experience of the sea in your writing. First timers & seasoned poetry pros, to this workshop, sure to get your creativity flowing! Encouraged by poets Hannah Temme & Fi Read, you will use the sea as your muse.

Please bring paper & pen, or whatever you prefer to write with. We are keen to make this workshop accessible to all – please let us know if we need to make reasonable adjustments to support your enjoyment & learning.

This event comes from the Mor poets, who have created poetry & photography anthologies about sea swimming & surfing in 2022/3.

Hannah Temme is a spoken-word performer, dancer & producer based in Newquay. She works to create community art spaces for local poets & professional artists to cultivate an artistic scene on the North Cornish coast. Her own work explores the intersection between femininity & the natural world. Living in the surf capital of the UK, & a surfer herself, Hannah has used this project to explore how the sea is integrated into everyday life in Newquay, to some as necessary as breathing.

Fi Read grew up in Australia, but she caught her first wave in Cornwall. As a surf-taxi mum, she figured she might as well join in, so she bought herself a secondhand surfboard for her fortieth birthday. Seventeen years later, despite three of her four kids being surf instructors, she still surfs like a kook. Fi works as a nurse, bar staff, life model, singer and writer, cycles everywhere, and can back-flip into water.

On the evening of the 21 Feb, the MMI Institute is also hosting Mordardh: surf poetry as a poetry performance event by the Mor Poets. Come and listen to our women poets sharing their poetry on stage, accompanied by photographs of surfers and swimmers from across Cornwall.