The Space Between

The Space Between has grown out of my own creative exploration of writing and poetry which began as a way of finding my voice and belonging within intimidating institutional structures - a white working-class mother in academia using poetry to process, resist and articulate my experiences of university. Creative writing, while used initially as a coping strategy in the university setting, has become part of my authentic voice, and a creative methodology in academic writing.

I have written poetry, not only on the experience of being working-class at university, but also to reflect and convey the interconnections and journeys of class and racialised identities in both myself as a white woman, and the people I love, as a mother and partner, to Black and brown people in my family. I am now at a stage where I am curious about a move from poetry as method to poetry as art form - to step into my own identity as a poet, while keeping those roots in reflections, race, class and lived experience.

The Space Between is an experimental creative curatorial project, that explores the lived experiences of working-class poets across Britain, bringing together Black, brown and white voices in a collaborative reflection on class and race, sharing a common ground of working-class experience, while acknowledging the divergent ways racialised and geographical experiences shape that reality. It highlights the misunderstandings and stereotypes often imposed on working-class communities, offering instead authentic voices, nuance and dialogue.

This project aims to curate a collection of poems - including my own and contributions from emerging poets, to experiment with presenting poetry in a curated prototype anthology format, and to evolved into a fully published book and exhibition.

This project is innovative: poetry and art are often separated along racial lines, and working-class poetry tends to focus on white or Black writers in isolation, and white poetry rarely if ever explores race and white identity explicitly. This anthology brings these voices together, exploring both shared experiences of class and racialised and urban/rural differences, which is largely absent in contemporary poetry collections.

Me, my mum and younger sister, Dorset, UK, 1987.