email website@lapidus.org.uk

monthly reflection on current Lapidus-related issues

September 2011

captivating performances

For the past three years, Lapidus Scotland has been working in partnership with The Big Tent eco-festival, in Falkland Palace estate, offering events for adults and children. Margot Henderson dressed as a bee to keep an all-age audience captivated while stimulating thought about endangered bees and care of the environment. Poetry walks around the beautiful grounds were guided by Larry Butler, Maggie Haggith and Gerry Loose, where participants had time and opportunity to notice with all their senses what the natural surroundings had to offer. The previous year at The Big Tent Festival author Frances Campbell led a workshop entitled 'Creative Potting Table'. Participants were invited to plant seeds and create bouquets of words, an enjoyable workshop were the worlds of nature and writing were inextricably linked. One participant commented: 'I really liked doing the practical physical exercise Š fingers in the earth. Nice pace. Friendly workshop. Inclusive. Good clear instruction'. People who attended the wide and varied activities of the Lapidus Poetry Tent in 2010 wrote that they were inspired to 'read more often', 'pick up my creative writing again', 'try out a group poem', 'recite again publicly, publish and sell my booklets of my poems and prose' and 'to think more like a child and laugh more'.

See film clips of Lapidus members and practitioners talking about their activities at Scottish Book Trust - Lapidus at Big Tent Festival