In this episode, Claire chats to poet
. Louise is an award-winning poet and performer, a bestselling author, and poetry course leader born in the UK. Her debut book, Plant Your Poetry: 365 Poems and Prompts to Grow Your Writing Habit was published in April 2024, becoming one of Canada’s most gifted poetry writing guides.She uses poetry as the eyes through which to see, travel and connect deeply to life's inner and outer landscapes and is known by the writing community a 'A Poet on the Road', in which she shows up daily to collectively write, support, inform and inspire.
After a ten-year career as an actress and theatre-maker, her journey as a poet began in 2018 when a particularly difficult time with her mental health forced her to stop in the middle of a hospital after being diagnosed with generalised anxiety and write her way out of it until she felt she could breathe again.
After performing regularly on the spoken-word scene, she was awarded a Developing Your Creative Practice Grant in 2019 by Arts Council England to develop and deliver poetry workshops and events for vulnerable adults experiencing or at risk of homelessness and young people from underrepresented backgrounds. In 2020, she became part of the Apples & Snakes Platform Poets emerging writers alumni where she received mentorship from Joelle Taylor, Adam Kammerling and Francesca Beard.
Her words and poems have been published in Lapidus International: Words for Wellbeing, Allegro Poetry, Poetry Out Loud by S Pen Union, Poetry of the Wildflowers by Tiny Seed Press, Facing Goodbye by The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press and is the Winner of Little Bird’s Publishing House Flash Friday Challenge. An extract of her poetic memoir, Learning to Fall, has recently been selected by Red Deer Arts Council to feature in their short story vending machine exhibit, at the Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery. She has also performed featured poetry sets at multiple venues and events around the UK, Europe and Canada.
Louise has delivered poetry and writing workshops for charities, festivals, retreats and organisations such as The Great Connection Festival, Growing Poetry, Red Bull, Spoken, Equal Arts, Eastside, the Community Cook Up and Care for Newcomers, as well as running her own workshops on collaborative poetry as the Co-founder of Tandem Poetry and poetry courses such as Writing, Editing and Submitting Poetry. She runs the popular Plant Your Poetry and Submit That Sh*t publications on Substack.
Louise currently lives in Canada with her husband and furry friend, Chanel - with a little one on the way!
We mentioned a previous podcast episode about the brilliant anthology Kaleidoscopic Minds and you can listen to that episode here.
Well-known poets who inspire Louise are Mark Nepo and Naomi Shihab Nye. You can read Mark Nepo´s poem “Adrift” here.
Louise´s fantastic book Plant Your Poetry: 365 Poems and Prompts to Grow Your Writing Habit can be found on Amazon, or wherever you purchase your books online. Barnes and Noble (US), Bookshop.org (U.S) and Indigo/Chapters (Canada) are great alternatives to Amazon.
If you have purchased Plant Your Poetry, you can join the private Facebook community here.
Louise is also on Instagram @a_poetontheroad
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