’Writers sure enough’: Mentoring school children in poetry

Centre for New Writing graduate writer Joe Hunter shares his experience of being one of a small team of MA and PhD creative writers to bring out the best in young poets attending schools local to The University of Manchester. At first I wasn't sure I was the right person to act as a mentor for the schools poetry competition. After all I was - I am - primarily a fiction writer. But I write plenty of poetry, and had certainly studied it for long enough. As Dr Luke Brown said to me once when I admitted my private poetry habit: "I think we're all secret poets." Professor John McCauliffe, poet and Director of the Centre for New Writing, sent out an email call in early March, which I answered along with a dozen or so other graduate writers. Over a couple of Zoom calls we learned what was expected of the students, and of us. Participating state schools in Manchester were set a prompt - this year they were to write poems relating to climate change.