Miles apart and yet sat on a zoom call, we spoke about anything and everything. Frustration with the education system seemed to be a key point of discussion – that feeling of discontentment with the curriculum and its impact on young people’s engagement with literature and poetry. To be a poet, you don’t have to rhyme, nor do you have to write sonnets, or only use language you would only ever hear in an English lesson. To write, and to be a poet, is to express yourself through words. Something we all felt had been forgotten.
Alongside this was lack of opportunity. While Cities of Literature across the globe are bringing young people opportunities they never could have imagined before, those opportunities aren’t always reaching those that need them. Outreach is vital, something we all believed strongly in as several of us on the call lived just outside our Cities of Literature (I come from a small town a 40-minute train ride from Nottingham). That idea of opportunity being focused on cities rather than smaller towns and villages was talked about heavily, the belief that Cities of Literature should not only work in their city, but in the areas around it as well.
An hour and fifteen minutes, it seems, was enough to form connections across oceans and continents. Eight young people all fighting to write and learn and grow all facing the same challenges. The fear of the creative industry is one that has too many creatives stifling themselves, and that is something we all wanted to change.
And, what we learned, was that change comes from conversations. Conversations like the one we had, where we talk and those in charge listen. That’s why we discussed holding more calls like that one we had for International Youth Day, fostering the links between our cities and letting them flourish. We even suggested having virtual open mic nights for writers from cities across the globe, in order to better understand each other.
Whatever comes from this conversation, I’m excited to see where it leads.