Drawing With Words, Ardee Library, County Louth

Drawing with Words was a series of visual poetry workshops for families held within Ardee Library, County Louth. The poetry workshops used collage, text, and word pictures to introduce children to the imagery of poetry. The workshops continued many of the Landmarks: Nature, Art, Schools themes, namely working with nature poetry, land art, and natural materials.

Selecting lines of poetry as the starting point for art, can deepen a child’s understanding of language as a springboard for their imagination.

Equally generating descriptive word lists with children, can ignite an interest in language as a collection of experiences.

The children made artist books, bookmarks, and sculpted paper into undulating landscapes of words and drawing. They also hid greeting cards containing poetry throughout the library, with the hope that they would be found by library patrons. The children added a positive message to each greeting card, so that whoever found the card might be cheered by its gift of goodwill.

Poetry passages were suspended throughout the room for children to ‘find’. Nature photography was also introduced for the purposes of collage, and to inspire lines and shapes within the children’s artworks. Families were encouraged to work together and to embark upon their own poetic wanderings using art, words, and photography during the course of Autumn walks.