Noel Williams
At the heart of Noel's residency at Bank Street is the opportunity to find the time and space to write a new poetry sequence on the theme of women and warfare. The idea is to build a historical and contemporary sequence examining the voices of women in their many different attitudes to and relationships with war, beyond the traditional stereotypes of victim, carer and woman warrior.The intention is to publish this sequence as a pamphlet. Noel wants to record and present the voices and experiences of real people as part of this work and is looking for people who might be willing to tell their stories.

As a result of receiving Arts Council funding, Noel will now be able to develop the first part of his residency a little more experimentally:

  • Poetry off the page: the aim is to design a series of poetry objects that offer slightly unusual experiences of a poem to a reader, in which the reader has some of the writerly role, including simple discovery toys that can be shaken or thrown to make “physical” poems, virtual displays using text fragments and an audio installation. These would develop the women and warfare theme, but might use other focii as well.
  • Performative writing. Linked to above, Noel intends to investigate ways in which a writer can directly involve a small audience in the process of writing, perhaps as a form of group writing, perhaps as directors of the writer’s process. If poetry is such a personal process, this may be a flawed idea, but theinterest is in seeing what’s possible and whether it might create interesting work. Subject to funding, this work will also involve contributions from other writers and artists.

Noel adds, "I’m looking to collaborate in different ways on all of these projects, which I expect the residency will really help with. Fine artists and makers might have ideas to help with the physical elements of the work; I’d need writers and also readers of poetry to help me with the interactive and performative ideas if they went ahead; and I ‘d like to encourage people to bring me their stories of war, if they’d be willing to share them for the poem sequence and the possible audio work." You can contact Noel abou the project through BSA or email him at: noelwilliams@blueyonder.co.uk. For furtgher information see http://noelwilliams.wordpress.com