The Forever Manchester Podcast

Kirsty Gbasai - YARN - A Manchester Poetry Project

YARN is a crowd-sourced interactive poem curated by local community artist Kirsty Gbasai.
The concept is to bring together people across Manchester, to become united in writing a poem that will document the current creativity of local residents and generating a unique peice of written creative art.

Yarn is being constructred one sentence at a time, with each contributor generating a sentence inspired by the previous sentence and involving lots of people, from all walks of life in the generation of something unique and special!

Forever Manchester recently chatted with Kirsty Gbasai about life and "Yarn" - Enjoy and get involved here: http://www.apoembymanchester.co.uk           

This is the Place - (The Story of a Poem)

This is the story of 'This is the Place'

The iconic poem originally commissioned by Forever Manchester that became a symbol of resilience in the wake of the devastating atrocity at the Manchester Arena on May 22nd 2017.

Mancunian Poet Tony Walsh, aka 'Longfella', was originally commissioned to write 'This is the Place in 2012' as a way of describing the very communities Forever Manchester is proud to fund and support and this is the story of the Poem.

Forever Manchester is Greater Manchester's Community Foundation, the only charity that raises money to fund and support community activity across Greater Manchester. Find out more www.forevermanchester.com     

’An Evening with Tony Walsh’ at Manchester’s legendary Frog & Bucket

On Thursday 27th July 2017, Forever Manchester presented Tony Walsh "the poet who defined a city, with a poem that inspired the world” in a very special evening of verse at Manchester’s legendary Frog and Bucket.

Tony delved into his vast collection to deliver a variety of amusing and topical poems in what was an entertaining master class of performance poetry with all proceeds going to support the work of Forever Manchester.   

We hope you enjoy 'An Evening with Tony Walsh'

Forever Manchester is Greater Manchester's Community Foundation, the only charity that raises money to fund and support community activity across Greater Manchester. Find out more www.forevermanchester.com   

 

This is the Place - ’The BOOK’ - Interview with James Torry

After the Manchester Arena terror attack on May 22nd 2017, more than 60 Manchester creatives, including Peter Saville and Malcolm Garret, came together to turn Tony Walsh's iconic ‘This is The Place’ poem into a book.

The poem, originally commissioned by, and written for Forever Manchester, gave language to our city in a moment when it wasn’t sure what to feel.

This is the Place quickly became an iconic piece of literature, spreading across the globe as a symbol of defiance, unity and love.

The resulting collaboration of creatives resulted in a brilliant & unique hardback coffee table book that not only marks a tragic moment in time but equally looks forward with hope. 

In this interview, James Torry who initiated and headed up development of the book, talks to Terry Snowden about what became a truly unique and creative project. 

Forever Manchester is Greater Manchester's Community Foundation, the only charity that raises money to fund and support community activity across Greater Manchester. Find out more www.forevermanchester.com  

 

 

 

’Bee Love’ - The Story of Amy Coney’s ’This is The Place’ Artwork

Artist Amy Coney, raised an amazing amount following the auction of her This is The Place “Bee Love” artwork which was signed a huge variety of stars & celebrities with the proceeds helping to support the work of Forever Manchester and the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund.

'Bee Love' was created across a ten-hour painting session and features words taken from Tony Walsh’s “This is the Place”, poem which was originally commissioned by Forever Manchester to reflect the local communities we are delighted to support. - Here Terry Snowden chats to Amy about the "Bee Love" artwork.

Forever Manchester is Greater Manchester's Community Foundation, the only charity that raises money to fund and support community activity across Greater Manchester. Find out more www.forevermanchester.com