New poetry for The Tempest

The Firebird Poets

The 8 creative writing/poetry workshops funded by Quartet Community Foundation, came to an end in December 2009. The Firebird Poets worked with poet Claire Williamson again and have written 22 new poems around The Tempest. The Firebird poets are: Brenda Carr, Brenda Cook, Jenny Redlar, Claude Rimmer, Jenny Stafford, Penny Goater and Emily Pamon. Other participants were Daniel Bryan, Tina Kelly and Steve Knight.


We will put all the new poems on our website as soon as possible but in the meantime here is a taster, a poem written by the whole group around Prospero’s rise to power as a magician.

The hovering humming birds will hum to his tune
The wild waves will break to his beat
The free spirits will rise and fall to his hand
The trickling sand crushes under his feet

Many of the poems or extracts of the work will be used as part of Firebird Theatre’s performance of The Tempest. All the poems will be read/performed as part of Bristol’s Poetry Festival in September 2010. Six more poetry sessions are planned for summer 2010 to prepare for the Festival and these will be part-funded by Bristol’s Poetry Can.