Since 2001 the Cape Farewell project has worked across the UK with artists from all disciplines to create art that responds to and informs the fight against the climate crisis. As the coronavirus pandemic hit Britain, Cape Farewell launched the Siren Poets project: an emergency cultural collaborative poetic process led by four “Siren Poets” to inspire us in the midst of a crisis to reconsider our relationship to the environment and the systems that we live in.
Liv Torc is a performance poet from Somerset who is well-versed in inspiring collaborations as a teacher at the Hip Yak Poetry School and creator of Project Haiflu, bringing together experienced and amateur poets alike across the UK to create a shared record of life during the lockdown. As one of the four Siren Poets picked to lead the project, Liv set a series of challenges for writers in order to invigorate creativity in quarantine and encourage reflection on our connection to the Earth.
To share this experience some of the poetry created during the project was collected in a book: What If We Can’t Save the Earth?, encompassing the work of 41 of the participants in a retelling of what the group discovered in their experience.
Ahead of the launch of the book–and culmination of her programmed–I spoke to Liv about what inspired her work with Siren Poets and what lessons she had took from carrying out the project.
The Siren Poets project seemed to give you a fairly large remit in regards to the kind of response you could create. Could you take us through why and how you were lead to using a workshop-based project in response to Cape Farewell’s aims?
Cape Farewell gave us all a very free reign with the commission, so we could basically take it in any creative direction we chose – although they did specify a participatory element and wanted us to run workshops of some description and get people involved through engagement.
I am very excited as an artist about creating collaborative art – as I believe it can be a very powerful way to tell the stories of our time. Also I was coming straight off the back of the success of the haiflu project, which had engaged thousands of people in writing haiku about lockdown and the pandemic. So I knew first hand the impact participatory work can have, especially when you run it alongside the creation of tangible creative outputs, such as films or shows or books. People love being part of a piece of art – and that’s what I wanted to facilitate with Sirens.
The link between the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis is interesting. I remember that the start of lockdown coincided with National Poetry Writing Month and much of the work I was producing related to the environments I was interacting with on a daily basis–somehow the pandemic was making the whole world feel more fragile. Was there any interesting or surprising interactions you found in your own practice?
My Siren poets commission was all about the greater connectedness people felt with nature during lockdown. I wanted to fully explore that new relationship and engagement with the natural world because I felt that was something a lot of people would relate too! I was following the love not the fear.
I remember one of the first conversations PFTP had was whether we would be “against” extinction or “for” the planet. What role do you think love has in the fight against the climate crisis?
Love has everything to do with it. If we love the planet we are far more likely to fight for it.
Are there poems in the collection that surprised you with how the themes of pandemic and the climate crisis collided?
Lots. Rosemary Dun’s springs to mind because it’s a real exploration of surprising animal activity and behaviours during lockdown, when there was less man made interaction with their habitats.
Your prompts for the poetry really emphasise actions (or challenges)–as opposed to typical workshop activities like freewriting or wordplay. Is this something you typically do, or did you find it particularly useful when it came to this topic?
This was a project about interacting and communicating with nature. It felt crucial to get participants to really go out and do that because I wasted this to be an authentic and profound experience for them. And yes I do often work in this way, asking people to go out an experience, not just play with words.
The book as a whole is very collaborative–with the majority of the poems coming from workshops there is a lot of trust between the poets. One of the first poems in the collection is also specifically a collaborative poem. Do you find the use of collaborative work in activism poetry to be important?
Yes definitely… I love a group poem! The one you refer to was made into a film as part of the commission because I wanted to show multiple voices. It’s not just my story to tell and when lots of perspectives are woven together it allows for a bigger social history to be revealed.
What do you think comes out of a collaborative voice as opposed to a single one?
Collaborative creativity tells the sociological story rather than the deeply personal insight. Both are interesting but at times in history as unusual as this the multi voiced approach provides a wider truth about the societal impact of the times.
The rawness of the collection is evident–although many of the poems are still impressive and complete–and with a focus on haiku that emphasises “sharing the moment.” Did you find that this mode of writing brought new angles to the major themes of the project and anthology?
Participants were asked to communicate with nature and bring back the lessons. To speak to the Earth and turn that into poetry. There was a variety of writers and experience levels within the book. But I like that, it tells a human story and makes the ideas more accessible. It also gives permission for anyone to have a go. I believe poetry is profoundly healing and shouldn’t just be for the few to experience.
Is there anything from facilitating this exercise that you have taken away to use in future projects–whether public or personal?
Yes definitely I learned so such from the process and was really validated to see how well it worked. From setting the challenge and making the 6 challenge films, to running the 6 workshops, making the group poem film, the 2 sharings of individual work and then the creation the book and book launch. It’s been an epic project with so many components but the theme is clear throughout. The Earth has so much to teach us and by listening we can find the answers to our own healing.
There was also a clear journey that people really engaged with and the process has had such a positive effect on people. It’s art that makes a difference, especially to those involved in making it.
The launch of the anthology takes place November 4th at 7:00PM GMT as an online event. You can purchases tickets (which includes a copy of the book) here.