Gardens of the Bodymind - a Moving Mountains writing workshop with Polly Atkin

In this workshop we'll draw on the work of disabled writers past and present, from Dorothy Wordsworth to Eli Clare, to help us think about how we connect to the natural world if we can't go striding heroically out over it, as nature writing so often expects. We'll build on examples of writing that focuses on the very small and very local - things we can see and feel without leaving our rooms or our beds - and writing that brings the world into our rooms and our bodies. No experience is necessary and all are welcome.
This workshop is led by Polly Atkin, and facilitated by the Moving Mountains project, with support from Hypermobility Syndromes Association HMSA, and in association with the Society of Authors ADCI week celebrating Disability Pride Month. We will be joined in the session by Lisa Bone, the CEO of HMSA to talk about their work supporting people with symptomatic hypermobility..

Captions provided by Otter.ai.

Moving Mountains is an Arts Council England supported project that, for the first time, brings together nature writing with people living with chronic illness and physical disability. The funding enables us to produce Moving Mountains, an anthology of 22 commissioned writers and artists, alongside a programme of workshops running throughout 2022, connecting with nature, literary and disability organisations. For more details about the project, please visit www.movingmountainsanthology.wordpress.com.

Polly Atkin is a poet and nonfiction writer, living in the English Lake District. Her first poetry collection Basic Nest Architecture (Seren: 2017) is followed by Much With Body (Seren, 2021), a PBS Winter 2021 recommendation. Her biography Recovering Dorothy: The Hidden Life of Dorothy Wordsworth (Saraband, 2021) is the first to focus on Dorothy’s later life and illness. She is working on a memoir in essays exploring place, belonging and disability. Her work often reflects on her experiences living with Genetic Haemochromatosis and Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

References used: - in addition, Polly references these works:

Kathleen Jamie, ‘A Lone Enraptured Male’, LRB, vol. 30, no.5, 6 March 2008, pp. 25-27 https://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n05/kathlee...
&
Sarah Jaquette Ray and Jay Sibara call this figure the ‘wilderness body ideal’. (Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities Toward an Eco- Crip Theory ed. by Sarah Jaquette Ray and Jay Sibara (Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press, 2017), p.2).


in addition, Polly references these pieces (she says they are in the chat but without the chat function these are the references:

Kathleen Jamie, ‘A Lone Enraptured Male’, LRB, vol. 30, no.5, 6 March 2008, pp. 25-27 https://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n05/kathlee...
&
Sarah Jaquette Ray and Jay Sibara call this figure the ‘wilderness body ideal’. (Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities Toward an Eco- Crip Theory ed. by Sarah Jaquette Ray and Jay Sibara (Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press, 2017), p.2).