On a beautiful autumn day in 2020, just before it started raining, Wytham Woods’ out-going Poet in Residence, Sarah Watkinson, and Youth Educator in Residence, Kim Polgreen, held a poetry workshop for teenagers in the Woods.

Sarah is a biologist and a wonderful poet and communicator. This event was just 90 minutes long, but the students wished it could have been longer. It was calming, energising and uplifting all at once.

One of the students commented that she had been in the woods many times before but had never engaged with it in that way before. To sit still and contemplate the thoughts that arise, and share those thoughts with others, was a wonderful way to be in a natural space and to reflect how one feels about that experience.

We wrote a few lines, Sarah read her poem about seeing a badger undergoing a routine check in with the scientists, and we talked about our favourite poems. Wytham Woods has a new Writer in Residence and we look forward to more writing events over the coming year.