Text as Material: Collage Poetry Workshop with Sophie Herxheimer

Join artist and poet Sophie Herxheimer for two hours of imaginative poem construction with collage. 

Using materials that can’t be bought, like the books you find left on a neighbour’s wall, Sophie’s extravagant scrap collection, and your own beady-eyed wonderings, reveal poems that lurk under random collisions of colour and language will surprise with their spontaneously wrought energy, rhythm and logic.

This workshop is a chance to play, experiment and generate new work in the wild spaces between image and text, and is suitable for all levels.

About the tutor

Sophie Herxheimer is an artist and poet. She’s held residencies for The Museum of Liverpool and Transport for London among others. Her work has been shown at her local allotments, Tate Modern and on a giant mural along the sea-front at Margate. She made a 300 metre tablecloth for the Thames Festival, a life-size concrete poem in the shape of Mrs Beeton to stand next to her grave, and a pie on the lawn of an old people’s home big enough for seven drama students to jump out of, singing. 

Her collection Velkom to Inklandt (Short Books, 2017) was a Poetry Book of the Month in the Observer and a Sunday Times Book of the Year. Her book 60 Lovers to Make and Do, (Henningham Family Press, 2019) was a TLS Book of the Year. She has an ongoing project where she collects and draws stories live with members of the public. Her new collection is INDEX(zimZalla, 2021), a box of 78 collage poems, published in a box as a deck of prophetic cards.