Apostrophe

2009

A public poetry listening/reading station commissioned by the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts. The piece was made using Northumbrian yew wood sourced from a sawmill close to my childhood home. Initially, the poem installed was Intermediary, a shuffling sonnet that presents an unique performance to the listener each time it is heard. The act of shuffling the poem can also be reproduced physically by using the postcards which are each printed with a line of the poem. Apostrophe can be found in the foyer of the Percy building at Newcastle University where it is used to present recordings of work by writers connected to NCLA.

Apostrophe was temporarily installed into St Mary’s Heritage Centre in Gateshead during the 2012 Gateshead International Festival of Theatre. During this time it was used to present Iranian Voices, an international radio theatre project created from real life stories, exploring human rights abuses through the lens of Iran post the 2009 presidential elections. In 2013 Apostrophe was loaned to Culture Lab, Newcastle as part of their Ageing Creatively program where it was embedded with a choir.