Elizabeth Shorrock

Grasmere Church Project

In 2013 I was involved in a very interesting collaboration between the Wordsworth Trust, Lakes Collective and Grasmere Church. A group of poets were given a tour round this fascinating church by the Rector and told something about the history of it. They went away and wrote their poems and the the artists of Lakes Collective responded to the poems with their own art work. The culmination of this was an exhibition in the church and a poetry reading evening.

I began by thinking I would choose one poem and make a book in response to it but I kept getting more and more ideas and ended up making a book for each of the poems. It was a great chance to try out new ideas and techniques. For some of the poems it was the words and ideas contained in them that were the inspiration but for others it was the shape the poem made on the page.