As Kendal Poetry Festival has moved online his year, we’ve also moved our Young Poet in Residence post online for 2021. Heather Hughes is our Young Poet in Residence for 2021, here we get to know her, and get a sneak peak at some of her poetry.
Heather is eighteen and is in her first year of studying English Literature at Lancaster University. She performed with Simon Armitage when she was fifteen and more recently at the Contains Strong Language festival; which was broadcasted on Radio Cumbria in 2020. She was commended in the Foyle Young Poets competition in 2019, the poem for which is below. She’s been published in the 92nd issue of the magazine Obsessed With Pipework.
Heather has performed twice at Kendal Poetry Festival before and says “I am very grateful and excited about my opportunity to be poet in residence this year.”
She also says “When I started coming to the Dove Cottage young poets workshops, I have never written or read much poetry at all, and had no idea I had such a love for it! One of the things I love about it is how it can only take a few words to have such a powerful effect on you.”
After university, Heather is thinking of training to be an English teacher. In the future she’d love to advance my career as a writer. Her biggest ambition is to publish novels and poetry collections.
Finally, three random facts about Heather are:
She has four cats and a dog. Her favourite colour is green, specifically the green of the leaves of an oak tree, and her birthday is in national poetry month!
Her poems At the Lake and The Circus are in the festival pamphlet which will be going out to festival pass users soon.
The Rope Swings
At the top of the nameless hill,
To the hooded tree where the same crow perches,
The girl comes every day.
So right until the sun’s lamp fades,
This girl plays so she can forget,
Whilst the branches moan.
She fixes her gaze ahead
Over the grass.
She watches her father hang out,
His feet swinging impatiently.
The game he had begged her to finish.
For now the girl must continue at
The rope swings in the wind.
The rope swings in the wind.
For now the girl must continue at
The game he had begged her to finish,
His feet swinging impatiently.
She watches her father hang, out
Over the grass.
She fixes her gaze ahead
Whilst the branches moan.
This girl plays so she can forget.
So right until the sun’s lamp fades,
The girl comes every day
To the hooded tree where the same crow perches:
At the top of the nameless hill.
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