The 'On our Doorsteps' initiative, How are you feeling? A stroke survivors' poetry writing project, continues to generate much interest in the school and the wider community. The project involves members of three local Stroke Clubs, school academic staff and pre-registration nursing students, with funding initially coming from the Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP). More recently the project team have secured additional funds to print a pamphlet and record a CD with the poems read by performance poet Kate Tym. The funds were awarded by the Springboard Grants Programme from the Development and Alumni Office at the University of Brighton.
Kate has been working with the school over the last year and attended a General Staff Meeting during the summer to help explain the project and read some of her poems. Final year nursing student Guy Chetwynd-Appleton provided the student's perspective. He commented that the project had provided an insight into living with a stroke that he could not have obtained from being on a hospital ward. The experience has inspired both staff and students alike and prompted two additional poems to be included on the CD.
Kate Tym reading stroke survivor poems at the General Staff Meeting, July 2011
Performance poet Kate Tym, Alec Grant, final year nursing student Guy Chetwynd-Appleton and Debbie Hatfield
Kate performed the poems at all three Stroke Clubs as part of the project and to confirm the authenticity of the narratives generated from peoples' stories. One of the performances was attended by a representative from The Stroke Association, and this led to an article in the winter edition of Stroke News. Since its publication, Kate has received a number of enquiries from other stroke survivors and carers around the United Kingdom wanting to share their thoughts and words. As a consequence The Stroke Association is featuring a poetry competition which the former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion will be judging in May 2012. Kate has been invited to help draw up the shortlist of poems.
The project partners in the School of Nursing and Midwifery are principal lecturers Alec Grant and Kay Aranda and senior lecturer Debbie Hatfield. One of the overriding messages from this work is its resonance with the real experience of surviving a stroke and the opportunity to provide a voice in an innovative way from which we can all learn. The pamphlet of poems with CD will be available from the end of January 2012.
Please contact Debbie Hatfield or Kate Tym for further information. Emails: D.Hatfield@brighton.ac.uk or katetym68@gmail.com
Download the Winter 2011 edition of Stroke News (pdf 2.6Mb) – see page 15 for the poetry project
