"He’s undeniably great. He’s absolutely cool, the poet who came, the poet who came, the poet who came to school! The poetry workshop with Dr Bob Beagrie really inspired our children to think about poetry from a new perspective and stretch the way in which they think about combining words for impact. By the end of the day, we had some fantastic poems and performers we never knew we had! An excellent day that both children and staff thoroughly enjoyed."
Green Lane Primary School, Middlesbrough
Bob has managed and delivered creative writing, story-making and cross artform projects within community and educational settings for many years, empowering people of all ages to express themselves and articulate their experiences, and value their own unique perspectives.
From mothers and toddlers groups to care homes for the elderly, to work in prisons, to hard to reach groups, to people recovering from substance abuse and homelessness, Bob has developed a dynamic, trauma-informed approach to utilising creative writing as a vehicle for personal, professional development and community engagement.
“I have known Bob Beagrie for many years as a practising artist, educator and independent practitioner and producer of poetry and literary projects. His work is of the highest standard and he has received numerous awards and commissions from New Writing North including a Time to Write award from the Northern Writers’ Awards our flagship programme and funding towards newly commissioned work that we have been proud to share at Durham Book Festival, our own festival here in the North East.
We regularly employ Bob to work on our projects with young people and with the communities and his ability to facilitate creative work with a wide range of people is excellent and of great value to the work that we deliver. Bob is a great ambassador for Teesside and the wider North East of England.”
Claire Malcolm
Chief Executive
NEW WRITING NORTH
“The project was called Self Portraits & Poems and as a writer and artist Bob led a series of creative sessions exploring self-portraiture through image and word. The sessions brought together people from local communities to create a display of drawings and accompanying poems that reflect their sense of individual, collective and cultural identity, celebrating diversity and shared memories of Middlesbrough. Participants of the workshops then presented their
work and delivered readings of their poems during a showcase event in Navigator North’s Unit 7 space at the end of the project.
Bob delivered all aspects of the project successfully and met all the aims of the funding. The impact on the
participants was visible, especially during the event where they were supported by Bob to pluck up the courage to perform their own written piece to a live public audience. Participants and audiences were fully engaged, and the work was very well received with comments such as, ‘Loved hearing the poems and self-portraits. The local voices, unaffected, generous, open. So very Middlesbrough!’ – audience member, and ‘Poetry is my new hobby to have. Bob Beagrie helping me with my poetry is amazing and eye opening.’ – participant.
It was a pleasure to work with Bob and we would certainly recommend him for further projects based on our
experience.”
Navigator North
“I gained a lot from working with Bob. For my loosely formed poems I was able to tap into Bob’s broad reading and knowledge of poetry. This suggested other relevant poets to read, and works similar in concept to the ones I was working on in order to see how other poets have developed their concept and overcome challenges. I found this both useful and inspirational, particularly for longer pieces
For more complete works Bob’s close reading was useful in order to realise those difficult final edits. I feel this close reading and technical knowledge gave me a much greater level of insight into how the poem would be received and also generated ideas to strengthen them. Where there were words and phrases that didn’t quite have the impact required, Bob was excellent at identifying these.
I would heartily recommend working with Bob for anyone who wishes to help their work reach a higher, more professional standard.”
Gordon McInness
“I wasn’t sure what to expect from mentoring, but Bob was able to help me to develop my ideas, especially the more experimental ones. Bob challenged me to rework and develop poems until they were markedly improved. As a mentor Bob was able to make me view my poetry from the perspectives of readers and editors. In a few months Bob helped me to develop an idea for a pamphlet and provided me with excellent insight, articles and poetry recommendations. I will definitely go back to Bob in the future.”
David Mitchell
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