Presenting My Poetry to Royalty

King Charles and Queen Camilla at the Babara Hepworth Museum, St Ives. Images © Guy Martin / Tate Official Facebook.

In August this year, I was booked by Tate St Ives to share some of my poetry and talk about the Tate Collective Producer scheme to an audience of VIPs. I assumed that these would be a selection of trustees or directors (who were also in attendance) but I was informed the night before the event that my audience would be the King and Queen on their first official visit to Cornwall since being crowned!

It was lovely to share the cut-out/collage poetry activity with Queen Camilla, describing how I drew from Hepworth's biography and own words in order to create poetry which responded to some of the sculptures on display around us.

As a collective, we develop many events throughout the year for different festivals and events, often working alongside specialist artists, so it was an honour for one of my writing activities to have been chosen to showcase the collective for the Royal Visit to Tate St Ives.

Following the event, I received some really positive feedback from the Director of Tate St Ives Ann Barlow and Head of Visitor Experience Zara Devereux, who shared that meeting the Tate Collective Producers was one of the highlights of the Royal Visit.

Setting up for our Royal visitors. Photo courtesy of Rachael Woodhead, Learning Curator: Children, Schools and Young People, Tate St Ives.