Gerald Collaborates With Arts Project During Lockdown

3rd July 2020

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A Walsall writer has been asked to collaborate with an arts project during lockdown. Gerald Kells, a published poet and author, has been invited to rad at a prestigious online event and his poem will be published in a special booklet at The Space Station in Stafford. "Poetree is the brainchild of Lisa Johnson", said Gerald "and a tree of poems in The Space Station in Stafford where anyone can stop and look at them and take that small moment to think a little differently about the world". Gerald Kells points out that putting poetry in a public space isn`t new and that the Poems on the Underground have been around for years in London but these are new, contemporary poems from writers around the Black Country and Staffordshire. They are also linked by the metaphor of the tree, new growth, new life and new thought. "The first Poetree went up in the Spring" he said "but the summer tree is very different. It`s been a time of lockdown and that`s meant it`s being shared virtually as well as physically with events and posts plus photographs. At the same time new poetic links are being formed like new branches and twigs. Stafford Live, for example, has brought together poets who previously would not have been able to share their work in their Zoom events and some of these are featured in the new Poetree." Gerald`s own contribution to Summer Poetree was a short poem about the Lake District. "Being in lockdown" he said "it`s good to be reminded of places we`d like to be. As a keen walker I really want to feel the wind on my face and breathe the air of the fells and that`s something poetry can do at a time like this, widen our horizons. I was really glad to be involved and am looking forwards to the next one". Gerald Kells is a poet and writer from Walsall. You can read his poems in his first collection "Li - Fifty One" poems or catch him reading on his YouTube Channel or at readings around the West Midlands.

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