It started out as such a good year for Montana Poets Laureate Melissa Kwasny and M.L. Smoker.
Quote
âMandy and I believe poetry is a necessary â a crucial â medicine for these times, because it is the language of the heart, of feeling, of connection between oneâs life and anotherâs.â
â Melissa Kwasny
Named Poets Laureate by Gov. Steve Bullock July 31, 2019, their inaugural event was the Billings Big Read in November 2019, where they gave a poetry reading and joined national poet laureate Joy Harjo, who was the focus of the Big Read.
It was such an exciting and auspicious launch which included Harjo playing her saxophone during her reading and later there was a salsa dance party, recalled Kwasny, who is based in Boulder.Â
Chapel House Care, which runs two care homes in Puddington, has been included in
Bringing The Inside Out, which has been published by the arts and literature charity Living Words. The charity spoke to more than 60 care home residents with dementia, their carers and relatives as part of a pioneering UK-wide project. They ran weekly sessions with carers from 15 care homes – including The Chapel House and Plessington Court in Puddington – to enable the words of people with dementia to be part of the book. Each person s sounds and words were captured using their Listen Out Loud Methodology , allowing residents words to be captured as they spoke them – making for an unconventional use of grammar and arrangement on the page.
Published:
5:08 PM December 14, 2020
Carers and family members of those living with dementia were also interviewed over Zoom as part of the book, published this week.
- Credit: Living Words
A celebrity-endorsed book published this week tells the stories of those living with dementia in a year like no other - including contributions from a Norfolk care home.
The book, titled Bringing the Inside Out, was put together by the charity Living Words, who have run residential workshops in care homes for the last 13 years.
Naomi Daglish-Gage, activity co-ordinator at Woodstock Care Home in Gressenhall, near Dereham, said: “It’s really to let people hear the words of people affected by dementia, and let them realise that they do have a voice - and it’s a strong voice. The power and the emotion behind the words in the book is huge.”