Katrina will be poet-in-residence at Alfoxton Park in October 2022 for National Poetry Day at the Somerset Art Works Festival.

Katrina will write in response to the Quantocks landscape and hold several public events over 6-8 October 2022, including a moonrise walk and reading on 8 Oct, plus drop-in sessions. Book here, all events are free.

Katrina’s residency is part of a joint event with Guardian Country Diarist and eco-writer Sara Hudston, who was one of the judges for the 2022 Ginkgo Prize for eco-poetry.

Katrina says: ‘I’m really looking forward to writing and walking at this outdoors residency in Somerset. It’s such a lovely thing to be doing for National Poetry Day, and I’ll be collaborating with the environmental writer Sara Hudston. We’ll also be running some site-specific events with a focus on the natural world and slow poetry. I’m a big walker but know relatively little about the Quantocks, so I’ll be lacing up my boots and I’m excited to see where the residency takes me.’

Katrina and Sara will be resident in the grounds of Alfoxton Park for three days from 6-8 October, where they will hold a series of outdoor workshops for small groups (booking essential, details to come later). There will also be opportunities to drop-in and meet both the writers informally. 

Alfoxton was home to William and Dorothy Wordsworth during the height of their friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in 1797-8. The Quantock landscape provided the impetus for ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ and their collaborative collection, Lyrical Ballads. It is particularly fitting that Sara and Katrina will be working in relation to this Romantic poetic legacy as October also happens to be the 250th anniversary of Coleridge’s birth.

Public access to the parkland is usually limited, but this event offers a rare chance to explore the grounds more than is generally permitted (no access to the house however, which is undergoing renovation). ‘

National Poetry Day is 6 October 2022 and the theme is the Environment.