Hey Folks,
It’s that time of year where we do a ‘quick’ round-up of all things Apples!! We thought 2024 might have been a bit of quieter following our 40th anniversary season but it seems to have been busier than ever.
Big news this year has been our merger with Poet in the City, not something we envisioned at the start of 2024 but which we are delighted has happened. Our producer Natalie has stepped up to be the Poet in the City Programme Director and we are delighted that Lennie Goodings, Lucy Dundas, Charlotte Cole and Shahrukh Bhatty have joined us from the Poet in the City board as Apples and Snakes trustees. The first Young Producer’s programme is underway in Ealing and more work under the Poet in the City Strand of work will begin in earnest in 2025.
We were also delighted to welcome Ty’rone Haughton as our first Trainee Artistic Director. This role was specifically created to grow leadership skills. We encourage other organisations to join us in creating and supporting further trainee AD positions so we can shape the future leadership of the arts.
For a long time, I really wanted us to have a digital noticeboard to be able to share all the events and opportunities that come our way, and now Janet (our Digital and Marketing manager) along with our friends over at D237 have made that happen! Check out UNLISTED for all your poetry opps! This board is for you all to use, to share and celebrate all things poetry and arts.
The other thing on my wish list was for us to have a space to support artists making work, we haven’t quite got there yet but we moved from our big office to a smaller one at the Albany, enabling us to be offer some rehearsal space to artists that we are working with. One day we will have our home for Spoken Word…one day!! Thanks to Rob for making this happen as it was a mammoth task!
Our work with children, young people and families continued with: Book A Poet, delivering workshops across the country, a pilot programme with A New Direction working in 5 London primary schools, some experimental visual art and poetry with Lewisham Looked After Children Services and PLOT17 – our hip-hop eco-show for children performed both indoors and out this year at various festivals and venues across the country.
We were delighted to receive further support from John Lyon’s Charity. For 2024-2025 they are supporting WordCraft, a programme puts poets in residence in five Ealing primary schools for ten weeks. To date, three of the five WordCraft residencies have been completed led by BREIS and Kat Francois with huge positive impact for pupils.
“With BREIS here, I actually found my voice. Like, before BREIS came I was like such a shy girl. I couldn’t even say one sentence without stopping. I used to cry really easily. I was like quite sensitive. But when BREIS was here and he helped us write this poem and because he said good things and he praised me I actually said it. Yes! And that changed my habits’
WordCraft – Year 4 pupil, Dairy Meadow Primary School
Led by Associate Producer Marcelle, our work in libraries grew with SPINE Lite engaging nearly 1300 children and families and John Lyon’s Charity providing three years of funding to develop our Telling Tales and Library Take Over projects. Activities will take place in libraries in the following six London boroughs Brent, Camden, Ealing, Harrow, Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster. SPINE Lite took place across 16 boroughs in London, delivering 69 events and employing 27 artists and poets.
If you’re looking for the perfect poetry themed Christmas Gift for children then the SPIN anthology edited by Joseph Coelho is for you!
Supporting and developing artists across the country is at the heart of what we do and we started the year with the end of our Future Voices programme which commissioned 40 poets from across the country and created 40 short poetry films. You can watch them online and some of the artists have gone on to do incredible work over the last 12 months.
In 2024 we also delivered:
- On the Side – 6 early career poets in residence over 2 months as part of an art exhibition writing 43 poems in response to the artworks as well as receiving professional development session.
- Artists Retreats, which brings poets together to spend a day recharging themselves with workshops focused on the crossover between wellness and creative writing.
- Online workshops including Red Sky Sessions, our open access development programme for aspiring writers aged 18 to infinity and awareness day celebrations
- Words A Stage 2.0 for early career poets which has 8 online workshops followed by a week-long residential at Arvon.
- Saluting New Daughters of Africa, a day-long programme of workshops, talks and performances celebrating 5 years of this important anthology.
- Supported UniSlam, as a key partner in this project which works with emerging poets currently at university where they come together for a weekend of performances and workshops in Birmingham, and GOBS Collective in Nottingham with their artist development programmes.
As part of our environmental and sustainability work (which is still in development), we worked in partnership with Zena Edwards/Nature Persists on the online Synergy Slam project. TREES and SOIL are now available as free online workshops for you to explore and enjoy.
Audiences enjoyed watching our poets live at various festivals over the summer as well as monthly at Jawdance as well as online through our Podcast and Black box series all produced by Iman. Check out all of our digital content via the read/watch/listen section on our website.
SPEAK UP NEWCOMER, our US Embassy funded programme in collaboration with Young Identity continued with visits from Mahogany Browne in September & Amyra León in November….we also managed to squeeze in an international Women’s Day Workshop with Safia Elhillo and a workshop with Danez Smith in October. We worked with partner organisations in Manchester, Birmingham and Coventry.
Over the summer, we also got to collaborate with Red Room Poetry and Word Travels based in Australia as part of the BBC Contains Strong Language Festival. You can read more about this lovely collaboration in their collaborative blogpost and listen to the full poem.
I’ll end with a heartfelt thanks to all our funders and partner organisations that have supported us over the past year, your support really enables us to have impact.
And extra thanks and love to:
- all the amazing poets that have jumped on a mic, delivered a workshop, participated in a programme, been commissioned, called for advice, or connected with us in some way, Apples and Snakes exist because to poets and its always a privilege to work with you
- all our trustees who give up their time voluntarily to support the organisation
- the Apples and Snakes team: Ben, Daniela, Iman, Janet, Marcelle, Mark, Natalie, Rob, Robert, Russell, Sarah, Ty’rone & Yelena for being awesome.
On a personal note, 2024 marked me being at Apples and Snakes for 20 years (various roles and 2 kids in that time), which I honestly cannot believe but I’ve stayed for so long because of the amazing artists that I have the privilege to work with and the Apples and Snakes team that really care about the work we are doing,
Roll on 2025!!
Lisa
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