Our annual School of the Arts Creative Show celebrated the culmination of three years hard work this week in an eye-catching exhibition and series of stimulating readings and performances.
The English department were delighted to display the beautiful poster presentations produced by our final-year students on the specialist option module, ‘Contemporary Poetry’. English graduand, Natalie Randall, presented a First Class poster presentation on ‘Natural Affinities Through Metamorphosis in the poetry of Vahni Capildeo’. Dr Ben Wilkinson, examiner of Natalie’s presentation, said that “Natalie’s analysis did an excellent job of exploring the shifting identities and creative processes at work in Capildeo’s strikingly contemporary poetry, particularly the exploded lyric tendencies that go against the grain of traditional formal English language poetry.” Finalists worked on fascinating projects, such as Matthew Robinson’s interpretation of ‘Filmic Techniques and Identity in Nayla Matuk’s Stranger‘.
Final-year Creative Writing students also delivered an inspirational series of readings from work published in the latest eclectic issue of our student-led creative magazine, The Bolton Review. We were enraptured by moving readings from Aidan Matear, Warren Jones, Shirley-Anne Kennedy and Eileen Earnshaw. In addition to this, we were treated to invigorating student performances from our closely aligned Theatre BA (Hons) programme.
The Creative Show also exhibited the newly established Writing Bolton project, a digital literature map of Bolton led by Dr Ben Wilkinson. The Writing Bolton map, generously funded by the University of Bolton’s prestigious Jenkinson Research Award, charts Bolton’s exciting literary heritage and contemporary writing connections. Signposting a host of literary sites such as Bolton Central Library (which is home to the largest Walt Whitman archival collection outside the United States) and Bolton’s Live From Worktown arts organisation, the map celebrates the literary significance of Bolton while showcasing the creative achievements of our finalist students.
