By Steve Cooke
One World One Chance is a collection of 27 beautifully crafted, thought-provoking poems penned by ten of our best local writers.
I was honoured to be invited to the official launch of the book at the Vintage Worx, Falinge Park Arts and Crafts Café, where we were treated to live readings of poems from the book by 8 of the contributors.
One World One Chance is the outcome of a project led by Seamus Kelly who explains, ‘The plan was to deliver a series of creative writing workshops, inspired by the Gaia installation that was displayed in Rochdale in November and December. The project was called Climate Worx, the result would be some brand-new writing by the participants that would be collected and printed in a book. To do this I partnered with Vintage Worx and with Eileen Earnshaw who was about to launch a new writing group in Falinge Park. A total of 16 people took part in workshops and 10 of those have submitted work that is included in One Planet One Chance. The group were fortunate to be invited to view the Gaia installation from the balcony at No. 1 Riverside immediately prior to a workshop hosted by RBC. The Gaia installation made us acutely aware of the fragility of our planet, spinning as it does millions of miles from the next star. That is something that was felt by those early astronauts who first left the orbit of the earth and entered that of the moon. I don’t believe that the future of our planet is at risk, but I am certain that the future of our species, and many other species is at risk. As we worked through the project, we’ve had to consider what we can do to mitigate those risks, we’ve thought about the planet itself, about nature, about our environment, our climate, and our societies’.
Seamus would like to thank, ‘everyone who has helped us to do this, especially Vintage Worx for hosting the sessions, Rochdale Borough Cultural Network for funding and
Eileen Earnshaw and the Falinge writing group for their enthusiastic contributions’.
The writers are Glenis Meeks, Chris Green, Sandra Buckley, Ray Stearn, Seamus Kelly, Eileen Earnshaw, Robin Parker, Sylvia Anne Jones, Maureen Harrison, and Joanne Wood.
One World One Chance will be available, free of charge, through several local outlets with a digital version plus a dyslexia friendly version, free to download.
Full details will appear soon in this column.
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