Jane Lovell is a multi-award-winning poet who recently won the prestigious 2021 Gingko Prize. Her poetry focuses on our relationship with the planet and its wildlife. For the last year she has been the writer in residence at the Rye Harbour Nature Reserve so it was fitting that her talk should take place in the new Discovery Centre.
As the nature reserve’s writer in residence, she hoped, “To create a poetry trail that encourages visitors to engage with this landscape, to listen, to take note of the detail; the transient skies, the resident birdlife and abundance of coastal plant life.” And indeed she did. Her audience was enthralled as she read her poems so movingly. She managed to transport people to the beaches, the marshland and the hides where birds can be discovered and to discover all the different layers of nature for us all to experience.
There was a lively Q and A session at the end.
Jane spoke after the event and said, “I was overwhelmed by the warm welcome today – an audience that seemed so in tune with nature and eco poetry. It was so lovely to return to Rye Harbour Nature Reserve for such a special final event as their writer in residence.”
Image Credits: kt bruce .