We are delighted to welcome poet Mandy Coe to the blog to talk about the adventures of co-curating the Children's Collection with the brand new Manchester Poetry Library. Look out for Mandy's latest collection of poetry Belonging Street.
At
the opening of the first free lending library in Manchester in 1852, writer William
Thackeray said that people wanted
books, '…as much as we look to air, or as much as we look to light and water…' He was right, and the library proved to be so popular that day, a police
constable was placed at the librarian’s desk to help keep order. Today, Manchester is a UNESCO City of Literature, famous for its vibrant art, music and literature
scene, a perfect place for Manchester Poetry Library and its programme of cross-arts collaboration, translation
and recordings of new work.
So,
if Manchester is the right choice for this project, was I the right choice as co-curator?
I think so! My comprehensive school (think 1970s, bell-bottoms and strikes) owned
two poetry anthologies from Geoffrey Summerfield’s series, Voices.
Full of edgy poems and illustrations of their time, they were designed to
subvert. Like all school texts, the spines were cracked with being hurled about,
but as we scowled and licked pencils, poised to graffiti the pages, the poems
crept in. The door to literature, and in many cases, literacy, might have been closed
to us, yet these books represented a loose panel begging to be jimmied open. I
knew an invitation when I saw one, and took it.
The
co-curation commission arrived at the same time as Covid 19, and looking around
at my bookshelves, I was grateful that designing educational material for National Poetry Day and the Children’s Poetry Bookshelf had brought so many books my
way. The lovely Anne Fine, as children’s laureate, left My Home Library as her
legacy, and this inspired me to stock-take mine, and I set to: piling up new books
and blowing dust off old favourites. Here were cheap and cheerful paperbacks filled
with pen and ink drawings, plus huge books creaking open to full-colour spreads
that made you hold your breath. And of course (thanks Oxfam) one battered set
of Voices.
However, my library wasn’t this library… and it wasn’t as simple
as sizing up… or sizing down (surveying ‘Top Ten’ poetry book lists of the
great-and-good, confirmed a core list, but it also generated an infinite wish-list.
Is this what ‘curation’ means, I wondered? The capacity to cull combined with the
knack of cultivation? From my occasional stints as editor I knew the origins of
the word ‘anthology’ was from the Greek, anthologia, meaning ‘bouquet’. It
seemed that, like anthologised poems, each book must stand alone, yet resonate
with others to suggest what lies beyond. I sat in a circle of books and resolved
to borrow the three elements of Thackery’s speech:
Air:
the community is the library
First
goal… to support the Manchester Poetry Library’s commitment to reflect its community. Over 200 languages
are spoken in Manchester, making it one of the most language-diverse cities in
the UK. Guided by Poetry Projects Manager at MMU, Martin Kratz – a poet and passionate
advocate of poetry in translation – the collection will be rich with books in
translation and in first language. This celebration of both local and worldwide
poets will be developed through MPL’s programmes of festivals, readings,
mushairas and the commission of translation and new writing.
Light:
not nursery rhymes as an afterthought
Second goal… ensure a balanced selection for the three age-categories (0-5, 6-12,
13-17) with an equal representation of single-author collections v anthologies,
classic v contemporary, a multicultural range of writers, humour v reflective, small
press v larger publishers, plus a range of languages and audio. I was very happy
to include infants in the category, and thanks to the extremely experienced MPL’s
director, Becky Swain, we have a ‘young adult’ category for teens.
Water:
education
Third
goal… create a fourth category for educators and writers. In addition to my
work as a poet/illustrator and visiting teaching Fellow of MMU, I am a free-lance
literacy advocate working with schools and inner-city projects, so I know that
this category of teaching materials (including online resources) will be invaluable.
This category will support librarians, teachers, teacher-writers and writers
who visit schools, and help MPL develop a programme of children’s education events
sharing innovative ways of teaching poetry.
Opening up and opening out
With the library’s physical opening postponed due to Covid 19, my
final goal was to put on the ‘virtual kettle’ and open the co-curation up to the
champions of children’s books. We selected libraries, reading and literacy projects
throughout the UK, plus a few overseas, such as the Bookaroo Festival in Delhi
and the Writers & Teachers Collaborative, in New York. A named individual
in each organisation was asked to suggest one or two favourite children’s
poetry books. This not only got people discussing children’s poetry, but will enable
MPL to make these champions visible to young readers through, “This book is recommended
by….” bookplates. Responses from this amazing community were positive, considered
and generous. Anne Fine invited us to use bookplates from ‘My Home Library’
while Apples and Snakes even offered to send free audio CDs! What a pleasure
this ‘open co-curation project’ was. To all who responded during lock-down, thank
you, thank you.
In 2014, seeing children’s poetry categorised under ‘jokes and
horror’, MMU’s brilliant Writing School team and Kaye Tew at the Manchester Children’s Book Festival, transformed, for one year, the prestigious Manchester Prize into
a competition to support children’s poets. Judged by myself and poets, Imtiaz Dharker
and Philip Gross, the best poems formed, Let in the Stars. This beautiful anthology,
with a forward by Carol Ann Duffy, was nominated for the CLiPPA prize – testimony
to all the illustrators and poets such as Carole Bromley, Ashley Gill, Chrissie
Gittins, Matt Goodfellow, Louise Grieg, Sue Hardy-Dawson – to name but a few.
Imagine how wonderful it is now, to be ordering these writers’ books for the MPL
collection.
The
collection touches on so many topics, there’s no doubt it will reflect our
young reader’s lives. With books like Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to
Poetry, Literacy, & Social Justice in Classroom & Community, From
Medusa To The Sky: Teaching Writing To Children With Special Needs, and
Somos Como Las Nubes, (We Are Like The Clouds), Poems About Immigration,
we are confident that the collection relates to both the public and the
personal. Here, children and parents, all our readers, will have a safe, creative
place to explore the world through poetry – no longer simply a category within a
library, but a library within a category. I can’t wait to see you there.
A huge thank you to Mandy Coe for writing this far-reaching blog feature.