The Poetry Trust, Suffolk-based organisers of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival has worked collaboratively with Environmental Arts on a year-long project – The Poetry Treatment – bringing Poetry to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.

The Poetry Trust is one of the UK’s flagship poetry organisations, delivering a year-round live and digital programme, creative learning opportunities, courses, prizes and publications including the international Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. The Poetry Trust is based in Halesworth, Suffolk. For more information visit The Poetry Trust.

The Poetry Treatment has given staff, patients and visitors access to enjoy poems on over 160 loo doors, in the corridors of the Main Hospital Street, on the tables of the Restaurant, on hospital radio and for visitors through this website.

Some 60 poets have ‘donated’ poems – all of whom are poets who have taken part in the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival or other Poetry Trust events. These poets include Connie Bensley, Roy Fisher, Geoff Hattersley, Ian McMillan, Adrian Mitchell, Helena Nelson, Christopher Reid, Michael Rosen and Jackie Wills.

Up to 62 employees from all walks of hospital life (from cleaners and catering staff to nurses and consultants) have taken part in free poetry reading and writing workshops led by Michael Laskey, poet and founder of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival and Jane Anderson, the Poetry Trust’s Learning and Outreach worker.

The Poetry Treatment has been funded by Arts Council England East, The Limbourne Trust and Norfolk County Council Support along with many individual poets.

Poetry Trust Director, Naomi Jaffa said:

“Hospitals always involve a lot of waiting around and we want to give people something a bit different and perhaps help them forget their worries for a time. The hospital is a vast and shifting community and we’re really looking forward to taking poetry to such a large and varied audience and hopefully winning some converts along the way.”