In 2019 we were commissioned by the University of Exeter to create a series of short films to support The Places of Poetry project. The project centres around a map of England and Wales and allows people to ‘pin’ original poems to places.
We made one main film which was conceived as a piece that would give viewers the necessary information, feature some of the poets and their poetry from around the country, and also have a certain poetic feel to it too. This film was presented by the poet and writer Paul Farley and featured the work of poets from Stroud, Portsmouth and Liverpool.
Alongside the main piece we also made three shorter films with the individual poets performing their work on location. In this film Richard Williams reads his poem, ‘Swordfish’, inspired by HMS Swordfish, which last sailed from Portsmouth in November 1940. This is one of 27 poems that Richard submitted to the www.placesofpoetry.org map, almost all of which are pinned in and around Portsmouth.
