ST AUSTELL: Word M'Art

Tuesday June 1st to Saturday June 5th, 2010, 10.30 am-4pm, FREE
The Market House
Market Street
St Austell
PL25 5QB
Tel: 07971 687120

WORD M’ART – A POETRY REVOLUTION IN OUR SHOPS
UK-based, international action-poet Sally Crabtree's Word M'Art project is kickstarting a wordy revolution by bringing poetry down from its ivory towers and into the brightly-coloured aisles of supermarkets and local shops. The ambitious project will launch at The Market House in St Austell from 1st - 5th June 2010 and promises a plethora of poetic delights with a permanent special offer on food for the soul.

Word M'Art is an interactive supermarket themed installation, which can be set up in empty shops, bustling supermarkets, as a market stall for fetes, carnivals and festivals or as a museum or gallery installation. The week-long launch event in St Austell will see interactive performances such as the Trolley Waltz, Poems in a Tin, I'll Eat My Words edible poetry cakes, Shopping List Lotto, poetic cures at the Word M'Art Pharmacy and live musical poetry from the Story Aisle Word M'arts in-store band – viva la poetry!

Sally Crabtree is an ex-world class gymnast who has been busy turning the poetry world upside down with her cart wheeling poems and magical Poetree. Word M’Art is her new poetic endeavour and the project was inspired by Sally’s Poems in a Tin as featured on BBC television and Radio 4.

In the run-up to the launch Sally will be working with the groups from the St Austell community to run Word M’Art workshops so that people can write their own poems for the tins. She is also keen for members of the public to open up to their inner poet and send their poems to her for inclusion in the Word M’Art installation. Sally, who has been invited to appear at the International Poetry Festival in Havana, Cuba in May, hopes that Word M’Art will be rolled out in supermarkets across the UK encouraging shoppers all over the country, young and old, to get involved in writing, performing and reading poetry.

“Poetry should be taken down from its ivory tower and given back to the people where it belongs,” she says. “In Cuba, the factory workers have poems read to them while they work and for them poetry is celebrated. It is as natural a part of their lives as living and breathing and they are not afraid to show their emotions. Here, it is only when there is a marriage, death or a birth that most of us are brave enough to get poetry out! I want to change all that and show people that poetry doesn’t have to be boring, stuffy or elitist. It can be fun, exciting, engaging and uplifting. There’s a poetry revolution going on and I want to encourage people to sign up!”

If you would like to submit your own poetry to the Word M’Art or would like further information please contact Sally on sally@thepoetree.net
To see more of Sally’s work, take a look at her (very brightly coloured) website: www.thepoetree.net