News and Events

Seen But Seldom Heard returns for local festival

12 October 2012

Poetry project had its third performance at Bridport Open Book Festival.

Seen But Seldom Heard returned this week as a part of the Bridport Open Book Festival.

Students Hugo Lucas-Rowe and David Young, from the Victoria Education Centre in Poole, performed a selection of poems to the audience, with the help of professional poet Liv Torc and their teacher Annie Caldwell. The poems talk about the emotions that these students face when dealing with their disabilities and David’s poems are performed using his electronic voice box.

Compered by performance poet Chris Redmond, the evening also saw the screening of an eight minute documentary of the project, and how far the students have come through it. After the interval, main act John Hegley took to the stage to round off the evening.

The Victoria Education Centre students have been involved in a series of poetry workshops alongside Liv Torc and poet Johnny Fluffypunk to create poems about their experiences of being disabled. The project was created in conjunction with Bournemouth University, with the help of BU academics Wendy Cutts and Carrie Hodges.

Dr Carrie Hodges, senior lecturer in Communication and Culture at Bournemouth University, said: “We have been using poetry as a way of encouraging the students to engage with their own experiences and feelings about living with a physical disability.”

The teenagers have already performed their work in the ICCI 360 Dome, as part of the Cultural Olympiad in Weymouth, and at Bournemouth University - where Bournemouth East MP Tobias Ellwood was in the audience.

Another performance of Seen But Seldom Heard will take place at Bournemouth University on 7 December 2012.

EXCERPT FROM A POEM WRITTEN BY VICTORIA EDUCATION CENTRE STUDENT DAVID YOUNG:
Some people think disability is a vegetable
Sitting in a vegetable box.
But I am not a vegetable.
I am an actor at the West End, doing the thing I love.
Or an F1 driver, driving the Grand Prixes around the Globe.
A football player, playing in the Premier League
Or just on my Playstation, just chillin’ out.
The truth is I can do anything I want
It is you that is disabled
I am not disabled
I am just me.

David Young, Victoria Education Centre