Poetry from the edge of the world

Last year in 2013 I placed five story boxes along the Coleridge Way and had over 1000 people touch and interact with them over the three months residency.

This year the story boxes are back, but I was also asked to place some poetry boxes in the Valley of Rocks. The idea of both of these projects is really simple, a book in a box, tied to a bench, you find one, add a little and then leave. 

So I deployed six Coleridge Way story boxes (locations listed here) and also tethered six poetry boxes in the Valley of Rocks, Lynton. We have again been staggered by the volume of written content, within the first 8 days two poetry boxes were full and now two months in we have a shelf full of them! Amazing.

Part of the project was to digitally share, piping images of book pages through Twitter and Facebook so people could virtually follow as well as physically. Often the tags of #Poetry #ValleyofRocks and #Devon get the most attention, but you should follow @storywalks for the full feed.

But the books are more than just the written word for I also ask for sketches, thinking I would like to tap into another of the visitors latent skill bases, and for those who didn't want to write they could just sketch. Incredibly they have become peppered throughout breaking up the pages with great little observational sketches, in hindsight these have become quite helpful as I use them to remind me where the book had been situated. 

So the Poetry boxes and the Story boxes will be out for the whole of this month, to be collected end of August, they are then to be exhibited at Lynmouth Pavilion throughout September, and I am sure the project will continue in their restaurant as everyone who picks up a story book cannot resist adding a piece.

The volume and quality of both sets of boxes has really excelled this year. I've left little notes to say 'only poetry/story inside please' which have reduced the numbers of 'The Jones were here' but even without I feel that people have really understood the project this year, and are even more willing to seek them out, add something and then leave for others to find.

Story boxes on The Coleridge Way have been started by published Author / Illustrators Victoria Eveleigh, Jackie Morris and Katherine Hyde