If you’re been coming to Kendal Poetry Festival for the past three years, you may have noticed the ever changing faces of those within Dove Cottage Young Poets. So what happened to these previous members? Find out below.
Chim (sadly unpictured) is currently working as a freelance Journalist and living in Manchester. She has a place on ITV diversity board and is a youth mentor with anti racist Cumbria. She’s soon to join young identity, a poetry workshop for people between the ages of 16-25. She has also held countless poetry events across Manchester in theatre spaces such as HOME and Contact.
Em Humble (first on the right) is at the University of Leeds and as part of her English Literature dissertation she wrote a collection of poetry and accompanying analysis on the death of the maternal. She is currently working as a freelance photographer, camera operator, and illustrator. She is hoping to move into Film and TV production. Lizzie Briggs (third on the left) is at the University of Dundee studying Dentistry. She has been doing lots of knitting during lockdown – from baby clothes to adult sized hats.
Em also had this hilarious video go viral on Twitter recently. Go and check it out!
Every “Northern” character in a musical. pic.twitter.com/rYq1Ze0sQd
— Em Humble (@em_humble) January 16, 2021
Bethany (otherwise known as Squiddy and sadly not in the above picture) has done quite a bit since moving on from Dove Cottage Young Poets. Managing to come as often as she could when on break from her undergrad, her subsequent move to Gloucester upon graduation in 2019 means that is now much harder to accomplish! She took the 2019-2020 year off to earn money and relax a bit. She then somewhat undermined this by applying to drama school in January 2020. Sadly, no success was found. However, the original post-undergrad plan still stood, and Bethany spent her Spring and Summer months applying for Masters programmes. She is pleased to say she is now a third of the way through the Shakespeare and Creativity MA with the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon! At the time of writing, she’s still stuck in essay hell, but she promises she’s enjoying it really. She still writes when she can. Less poetry nowadays – more flash fiction.
Flo (third on the left) is currently in her final year of University studying Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences, and is locked down in Birmingham. She still loves to write although mostly in the form of news and and other kinds of journalism. She studies a whole mix of subjects but specialises in French, Russian and International Relations. Hopefully in future she’d love to go into governance and diplomacy of some kind or maybe journalism- and of course she’ll always be writing poetry on the side!
Love this Hannah, it’s so good to hear the details of what all the original members are up to.