7 November 2017 12:22

A spring walk in the Grasmere district, following in the steps of Wordsworth’s sister, Dorothy, also a poet and author, was the inspiration for a forthcoming painting and poetry exhibition at Lancaster University.

‘Dorothy's Colour’, on show at the Peter Scott Gallery from November 22, captures the work of Lancaster University lecturer and poet Dr Sarah Corbett and visual artist Zoe Benbow in 'conversation' with Dorothy Wordsworth's ‘Grasmere Journals’.

Sarah wrote a sequence of poems entitled 'A Perfect Mirror', the title poem of her forthcoming fifth collection of poetry (Pavilion Poetry/Liverpool University Press, 2018) and Zoe created a series of paintings and drawings. 

The work was exhibited at The Wordsworth Trust this summer where the poems were printed onto large panels displayed alongside the paintings in a sequence, along with letters and writings of Dorothy Wordsworth courtesy of The Wordsworth Trust and creative work by students from North Halifax Grammar School, who visited Grasmere in March.  

Working drafts of Sarah’s poems will be on display alongside Zoe’s drawings, extracts from Dorothy Wordsworth journal and writings in conjunction with the new poem sequence and painting series.

The project is funded by Arts Council England Grants for the Arts, The Friends’ Alumni fund at Lancaster University and Lancaster University Department of English and Creative Writing. 

‘Dorothy's Colour’ is being shown at part of Lancaster Arts Sketch 2017, a new series of exhibitions exploring journals and notebooks which opens on November 22 at 6pm. During the evening Sarah will read from her new collection.