Award-winning Manchester Met poet chosen for arts charity Christmas cards
A moving poem on motherhood, refuge and parental love has been chosen by Forward Arts Foundation as the official design of its 2023 Christmas cards.
The charity behind National Poetry Day and the Forward Poetry Prizes sent it to donors and funders including the Arts Council and other prestigious arts organisations, with the illustrated festive design celebrating the writing talents of Dr Kim Moore, award-winning poet and creative writing lecturer at Manchester Met’s Manchester Writing School.
Dr Moore’s poem was specially commissioned by Manchester Writing School for National Poetry Day in October and explores themes of motherhood as refuge, following Moore’s own mother’s cancer diagnosis.
Addressing themes of sanctuary, loyalty and parental love, Dr Moore uses the concept of nature as a metaphor for motherly protection and was deemed to be the perfect Christmas card choice for Forward Arts.
The charity’s National Poetry Day Manager, Jay Bhadricha, said: “We love Kim’s poem that she wrote in response to National Poetry Day’s theme of Refuge. It offers what we hope to see in all the poems we feature – an interesting or slant way of approaching the theme. The poem moves from relatively safe wildlife imagery to something darker, while maintaining the core of refuge as a safe space, a ‘harbour’.
“It’s just a cracking poem that conveys its meaning in the way only a poem can, and we’re delighted to feature it as our Christmas card this year.”
Dr Moore added: “Having my poem chosen by Forward Arts for this beautiful card design is amazing. Motherhood has taught me so many things - but perhaps the most significant is that I am a refuge for my daughter, and that my mother has always been a refuge for me.
“This is especially poignant at a time like Christmas when we celebrate family. I hope my poem is also meaningful to the people who receive and read the card this Christmas.”
Dr Moore won the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2022 for her second poetry collection, All the Men I Never Married. Supporting her work is Manchester Met’s Manchester Poetry Library, the first public poetry library in the North West. Since opening its doors in 2021, it has welcomed over 20,000 visitors into the space, with many thousands of people actively engaging with its online presence.
The University’s Manchester Writing School, the largest writing school in the UK, led by former poet laureate Professor Carol Ann Duffy, is this year celebrating 25 years of teaching poetry, fiction, scriptwriting, non-fiction, and publishing. Many writers have gone on to win major literary prizes including the Forward Prize for Poetry, Costa Book Award, and T.S. Elliot.
Watch Dr Kim Moore read Motherhood as Refuge here.
