Quarry Quatrains
Spend a creative two-hour evening visit to a nearby quarry for a session with Sarah Acton and Patrick Corbett writing in response to this special place with prompts and guided exercises.
Participants will get to experience dinosaurs walking in the landscape of the Purbeck Limestone plateau. Where the dinosaurs once left their prints, you can record your words. Quarry Quatrains will thus become a living collective testament to their former presence.
Purbeck landscape has inspired many writers and artists over the years – Kingsley, Hardy, Betjeman have captured Purbeck in prose and verse. Now it’s your turn!
Inspiring View from Burngate
What will I achieve?
Poetic inspiration within an evening visit to a nearby quarry, to develop creative writing skills in response to this special place, with prompts and guided exercises to produce your very own quatrains.
What level is the course and do I need any particular skills?
Suitable for writers working at all levels.
How will I be taught, and will there be any work outside the class?
We will be visting a local quarry for our inspiration, chatting and sharing reflections growing ideas, and generating new poetry quatrains.
Are there any other costs? Is there anything I need to prepare in advance or bring?
Bring pen and paper. Tea and coffee will be provided.
| COST | £15 per adult £10 for students & children |
| CAPACITY | Maximum 20 people |
| DURATION | Two Hours |
| LEVEL | All levels from beginner to more advanced writers of poetry and prose |
| SUITABLE FOR | Adults and young people aged 12+ |
Your Tutor
Sarah Acton
Poetry | Creative Writing
Sarah Acton is a landscape poet and performer, oral history and community theatre writer who runs arts programmes for social engagement and connection to nature and place. Sarah’s writing and teaching explore earth history, myth, folklore and sense of belonging to and of landscape, drawing on a passion for poetics and orality (the living voice, rhythms and dialect).
Sarah’s recent projects include the Heart of Stone community play on Portland for b-side festival, and the Talking Tent story-gathering project for Dorset AONB, alongside ongoing commissions for Stepping into Nature including Your Seasons of Story, collaborating with two visual artists and a storyteller, and many local communities. She has written for magazines and anthologies. Sarah’s oral history book about the seine fishing industry along the Chesil Beach is published later this year.
Patrick Corbett
Poetry | Creative Writing
Patrick Corbett is a retired Professor of Petroleum Geoengineering. He grew up in Purbeck and has been writing geoescience-themed poetry for five years. He is lead editor of the volume: Earth Lines: Geopoetry and Geopoetics published by Edinburgh Geological Society in 2021 https://www.edinburghgeolsoc.org/earth-lines/
Patrick visits Burngate each year and co-leads Geopoetry, Creative Writing with Sarah Acton and leading the Quarry to Castle Trail walks.
Website: geopoetrick.co.uk
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