Arts and Literature

Published poet Helen Clare is looking for inspiring stories of Mancunians’ links to the textile industry to create odes related to the textile collection at MoSI.

Helen Clare

Not only that, but she would like local people to have a go at writing some cotton-fuelled compositions and velvet verse themselves.

In case you’re worried you don’t have the creativity, it’s worth bearing in mind that Helen used to be a science teacher, a profession she admits isn’t usually connected with artistry.

"Science and industry is not normally connected to poetry in most peoples’ minds," she explains, "but it often produces extremely powerful experiences and emotions, so it is a rich subject for writers.

"I’ve always been fascinated by fabrics, and the science and technology used to create new materials."

"You don’t need to have had any experience of writing poetry to come along, so please get in touch to arrange a meeting!

"I’ll be drawing on Manchester’s colourful textiles heritage – the sights, sounds, smells, and textures of fabric manufacturing – to inspire you, and help to write some poetry which reflects this important part of Greater Manchester’s story."

Helen will be holding workshops at MoSi every Tuesday until the end of July. A selection of the poems will be displayed in the Museum.

As inspiration, here’s Helen’s poem, Making New Materials, taken from her 2005 collection, Mollusc, which describes the process of making nylon:

Making New Materials

Take solution A. Decant
into beaker. Flirt
with it’s chloroform fumes.
Watch it swirl, sluggish
in dragon breath curls,
colourless clear
on colourless clear.
Add B, aqueous, hear
its lighter fall. Watch
it skate across the surface,
settle. Take a glass rod.
With the vertical stab
of a tailor’s stitch,
plunge through fluid
to the partition
of A and B. Lift
straight and true
the way you lift
a paint-oiled brush.
No drag. Slowly.
Something has congealed
like custard skin
on the rod. A line
leads to the source
between liquids. Balance
the rod on beaker. Twirl
between thumb and finger
like a magicians wand.
Steady. A and B constantly meet
react, are drawn to the rod.
The thread winds even, smooth.

This is nylon.