I’ve lived next to Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, just outside Rye, on the Sussex coast for about 20 years and throughout that time it has had a profound effect on my life and work. I love the huge expanses of shingle, the movement of the tides and a sky that changes every time you look up.
Over the years I’ve written a couple of books about the reserve and edited an anthology of poetry and my own poetry is influenced by the sense of flux and change that come with living next to the sea.
Every new visitor is immediately taken on a walk round the reserve. It’s a place filled with miniature mosaics of plant and insect life and enormous vistas of cloud and water. In summer you can find incredibly rare bumblebees and plants, in winter there are massive ‘murmurations’ of plover or lapwing swirling overhead: it is extraordinary.
Working with Strongback last year on Songmaps Rye 23 was personally very valuable as it allowed me to engage with experts in the world of science, ecology and anthropology along with other artists and members of the public. The project invited the local community to participate in lectures, art and writing workshops on how Rye is being affected by climate change and some very powerful ideas were expressed.
Songmaps Rye 25 is shaping up to be equally exciting, offering community groups and individuals the opportunity to get involved, to create, to express their views and to improve the way we live with one another and with nature. I’ll be spending nine months running walks and writing workshops examining the rivers around Rye and curating a book of creative writing that emerges from those activities.
At the moment I’m also working on a book with landscape photographer Peter Greenhalf. Peter has spent many years photographing Britain’s ancient, sacred sites, while I’ve visited them to gain inspiration for my own writing. We’ll be spending a year travelling to our favourite ‘places of power’ to discover and try to capture what we find in each location.
S Morgan has written professionally for 30 years, including writing and editing for The Guardian, Red, The Independent, PD, The Daily Telegraph, KV, New Eden and Hello. She is the author of nine books, including The Shingle Shore and editor of a poetry anthology, News Ways of Looking. In 1995 she organised Synergy, a London-based convention where Jungian psychotherapists entered into conversation with practitioners of Shamanism, Druidry and Wicca. The event sought to explore psychotherapy in relation to alternative spirituality. In 2010 she opened Avocet Gallery in Rye Harbour, which, over the last 15 years has led to a fruitful network of connections to local artists, writers and makers.
StrongBack Productions is thrilled to have been awarded a grant from a private Estate Fund in support of their SongMaps Rye Programme.
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