Local Poet Ingrid Wagner is using her talent with words to tell your story of why you miss that special person in a Facebook Live session on Staffordshire Day Friday 1st May, as it celebrates the best that our creative county has to offer.
Are you far away from the people you love? Do you miss the hugs and face to face interactions we’ve had to live without during lockdown? Then Ingrid wants to hear from you!
“In these days of social isolation and lockdown, communication has become so important to us,” says Ingrid, “and we’re using all sorts of ways to stay in contact with the people who mean the most to us. I want to offer a slightly different way of being able to tell them what they mean to you.”
A modern-day Cyrano de Bergerac, Ingrid believes that poetry can bring together those thoughts and feelings which are swimming about in our heads and help us to express what we often find difficult to say and perhaps have taken for granted in times before lockdown.
“The Rattlebag is a wizard when putting words together,” says Fiona Beech, a colleague. “It’s like something magic takes over. A story is told, the spell goes into action and a verse pops out in a matter of minutes, uncannily accurate and descriptive. It just tumbles onto a beermat or a serviette or a scrap of paper and she has to keep a pen handy for when the muse strikes. You just don’t know when she’s going to do it. I don’t think she does, either.”
Brian Charles, a former BBC colleague, concurs. “Ingrid’s poems about people and events in our working lives always had us in fits of laughter with her clever use of the English language and rhyming rhythm, describing them in a way we had never thought of before.”
To have a poem read out for the person you admire or love, Ingrid wants to hear the story of why you are missing your special person, any particular qualities they may have and what these mean to you. It might be about a friend, a family member (big or small), a neighbour, a schoolfriend or schoolteacher, or even a partner if you are separated from them at the moment or someone you know who’s a frontline worker, a carer, a delivery driver, someone living alone – anyone you want to send a message to. Tell her what you want to say to them (please do this before Friday) and she will put your words into a poem to be read out on May 1st in a Facebook Live session.
To contact Ingrid with your story, you can call 07717036213 or email ingridwagner976@gmail.com (please include your phone number).
For a full programme of Staffordshire Day events go to https://www.enjoystaffordshire.com/whats-on/staffordshire-day
