Order, Chaos and Chronic Illness

Order, Chaos and Chronic Illness is a project that explores how we talk, think and write about ill health through the medium of poetry.

Between April and June 2014 over eighty members of the public, health professionals, and researchers with experience of chronic illness (by which we mean any health condition or disease that is long lasting) took part in a series of poetry writing workshops, focusing on the theme of the 2014 Festival of Ideas "Order and Chaos". Find out more about the project.

This project was funded by C2D2, a University of York 'virtual centre' for coordinating, promoting, supporting and maximising the benefit of interdisciplinary research and research-linked activities in the area of chronic diseases and disorders. More information can be found at www.york.ac.uk/c2d2.

Two significant events completed the engagement element of the project as part of the prestigious York Festival of Ideas. On 17th June at Kings Manor, nationally renowned poets Ian McMillan and Peter Sansom read poetry written by workshop participants, and from their own work, to an audience of over 60 who were moved and delighted in equal measure.

On 19th June an audience of 300 people gathered at the Theatre Royal to hear poets Simon Armitage, Gillian Clark, Blake Morrison and Peter Sansom read and consider the relationship between poetry and ill-health. Chaired by Simon Denegri of INVOLVE, the organisation that promotes lay involvement in health research. The audience was treated to readings and discussion on the power of poetry. Asked to choose poems from their own work, Blake Morrison chose “Meningococcus”. Simon read his “Ankylosing Spondylitis” and Gillian “Miracle on St. David’s Day”. You can hear Gillian read this poem at the following link: Miracle on St. David's Day by Gillian Clarke.

We would like to say thank you to all the people who took part in the workshops and those who became enthusiastic supporters of the project as it developed. An anthology of work, including some of the poetry written in the workshops, was published in the autumn of 2014.