WRAP launches first anthology to mark World Poetry Day

Explore WRAP's (Writing, Reading and Pleasure) first-ever anthology, written and produced by NTU students. Celebrating UNESCO World Poetry Day, the poems explore themes of love and loss, family and faith, time and hope.

Munashe Dviza performing her poem 'Past'

This March WRAP (Writing, Reading and Pleasure) launches its first anthology, The Story of Us, celebrating UNESCO World Poetry Day with their own 21 poems for 2021. The Story of Us, written and produced by students taking part in WRAP, explores the connections between the past, present and future in poems reflecting on love and loss, family and faith, time and hope. Leading up to World Poetry on Sunday 21 March, WRAP will be sharing a poem a day from their anthology on the Curated & Created Instagram channel. The anthology will also be shared amongst Nottingham’s fellow UNESCO Cities of Literature, including over five million people in Quebec, Seattle, Dunedin, Odessa, Utrecht, and Wonju.

WRAP, a part of the Curated & Created programme, launched in October 2020 as a place for students to explore the pleasure of reading and writing. So far there have been over 60 hours of events, workshops and book clubs, exploring themes such as race, gender, class and sexuality. The anthology poems have been written in workshops challenging students to write new worlds into existence. WRAP Ambassador Shannon Fletcher, a Final Year student from Nottingham Business School, who has been the editor for the project, says: "A fun project has quickly become something so much more – we have all grown and learned new things about ourselves. Each poem is personal, capturing a moment or feeling in our lives – these really are the stories of us."

The first video features Munashe Dziva, a Year Two Psychology student, whose poem Past reflects on fresh starts, inspired by Beyoncé. Reflecting on her experience, Munashe says: "When I first joined WRAP I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect. I was just excited to be part of a writing community, but that community slowly turned into our home of words, book shelves and emotion. We wanted to create writing that connected us but still stood out to our individual personalities, hence the story of us."

Dr Becky Cullen, WRAP Programme Manager, told us: "The poems in this anthology teach us to learn from the past and present as we step into the future. It is fantastic to see students across the university flex their creative muscles and come together at a time of such isolation to make something new."

Explore the anthology, The Story of Us, online.

Find out more about WRAP's activities, events and opportunities.

Published on 1 March 2021