Hampshire Poet blog - October 2025
- Damian Kelly-Basher
- Oct 1
- 2 min read
During his two year tenure, your new Hampshire Poet - Damian Kelly-Basher - will be writing a series of blog posts for us sharing what he has been up to, telling us his poetic plans for the future, and inviting you to get involved in poetry in Hampshire. Read on to find out what's happening in Damian's world!
Damian is passionate about wellbeing, sustainability and promoting peace. He is Poet in Residence at Global Futures Platform for Planet People and Peace, and this blog fittingly looks at eco-poetry.
Pictured below is Damian performing his poem 'Creation of Peace' at Winchester Cathedral for Winchester Green Week 2025
Eco-poetry is an important and ever-growing topic. Because concepts like ‘The Environment’ or ‘Climate Emergency’ are so vast, complicated and affect every aspect of our lives, they are defined as ‘hyper-objects. This also makes it impossible to imagine (or write about) as a whole.
For me, eco-poetry focusses on the more-than-human world and our relationship with it. This includes earlier writers (e.g. Thomas Hardy, John Clare, Edward Thomas) who also wrote about Nature, changing habitats and rural ways of life.
Looking at smaller subjects helps to write poems that address our changing climate in a meaningful way - for yourself and others.
For example, I’ve written poems on marine pollution, a local park, the moon, conservation volunteering.
Today, we ‘do’ eco-poetry in many different ways.
Some poets use spoken-word to ‘call out’ for large-scale action now. Poems with emotional connections to Nature and concerns about its future also featured heavily in 2024 Hampshire Young Poets Competition.
Others try writing from the perspective of a non-human being (e.g. a bird, a forest or a mountain) revealing how this is their world too (e.g. Sarah Richardson, Ted Hughes).
Reading Exercise:
These collections are just a snapshot of the various writers who look at our relationship with the more-than-human world.
Susan Richardson - Words the turtle taught me
Sarah McGuire (ed) - Flora Poetica: the Chatto book of botanical verse.
Alice Oswald (ed) - The thunder mutters
Ted Hughes - The iron wolf
As part of Winchester Poetry Festival 2025, Damian is showcasing an exciting mix of sound, performance and language revealing the diversity of our current poetry scene. With four poets showing how, for centuries, Polari, BSL and disabled voices have contributed to our English language and popular culture. Hampshire Poet presents: Ismael Mansoor, Simon Meats, Dr Kane Holborn, Rebecca Aldridge takes place at The ARC, Jewry St on Sat 11th Oct at 2:30pm.
Damian Kelly-Basher is Hampshire Poet Laureate 2024-26. The appointment of the Hampshire Poet takes place every two years and is jointly led by Winchester Poetry Festival and Hampshire Cultural Trust. The position of Hampshire Poet provides the opportunity for a Hampshire-based poet to undertake commissions, lead workshops and give readings and talks throughout the county, as well as acting as an advocate for poetry and poets.
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