Poet Laureate launches major poetry and museums project

This is a stunning level of commitment to poetry and poets. These ten residencies will create a unique collaboration of poets, creating a meeting of minds and disciplines and providing a catalyst for ideas." - —Carol Ann Duffy Duffy will launch the project, Thresholds, tonight at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge as part of the University's Festival of Ideas. The launch will also celebrate the new commitment to work in partnership between the University of Cambridge, Arts Council England, Cambridge City Council and Cambridgeshire County Council that aims to enhance the impact of their shared investment in arts, museums and libraries across Cambridge and the County. Further, the Thresholds project demonstrates the quality, ambition and reach of activity to be supported through the University of Cambridge Museums' Connecting Collections programme. Thresholds matches ten poets, including Don Paterson and Jo Shapcott, with museums and collections across the university - home to objects of limitless historic and cultural importance such as Captain Scott's farewell letter to his wife (The Polar Museum), Isaac Newton's own copy of Principia Mathematica (Cambridge University Library), and Charles Darwin's animal specimens collected on the Beagle voyage (Museum of Zoology). Each poet will spend two weeks in residence at his or her institution over the length of the project (which runs January-March 2013), meeting researchers and staff and exploring the collections. They have each been commissioned to write a poem informed and inspired by the collections and use the material and exhibits at their disposal as an opportunity for significant artistic development.