What? Creation and public performance of a series of new poems by members of Outside The Box’s ‘Word Out’ creative writing group and performed at the BBC Contains Strong Language Festival 2025.
Outside The Box is an independent charity that supports adults with learning disabilities and/or autism living in the Bradford District.
When? April – September 2025. Workshops were conducted over six months, leading to a performance on 20th September 2025.
Where? Outside the Box, Ilkley; Bradford City Library.
Partners: Outside the Box’s Word Out group; poet Chris Singleton of Brave Words; Bradford City Library.
Our Aims
The aim was to support members of Outside The Box’s ‘Word Out’ creative writing group, who are adults with learning disabilities and/or autism, to explore, write and perform original poetry and showcase this at an event at Bradford City Library as part of the BBC Contains Strong Language Festival 2025.
In 2024, group members had presented their work at the Ilkley Literature Festival and we wanted to build on this, allowing more workshop time to develop, hone and rehearse their work and platforming the group by giving them an opportunity to be part of this prestigious poetry and performance festival of new writing. It was also an opportunity to recruit new members to the group and champion inclusive spaces and creatives.
What we did
Over six months, poet Chris Singleton from arts organisation Brave Words ran poetry and creative writing workshops inspiring members of Ilkley community group Outside The Box to express their own stories in a safe, encouraging and supportive environment. The participants wrote pieces inspired by the theme of ‘identity’, exploring facets of their own personalities, experiences and perceptions of the world and resulting in an eclectic mix of poetic and performance styles. They worked with Chris to hone their performance skills, learning about performance poetry techniques and sharpening their own original ‘voices’.
On the 20 September 2025 they took part in a sharing event at Bradford City Library, performing their work and expressing their feelings about their identities.
Impact and feedback
These moving performances were passionate, honest and entertaining and the audience received them rapturously. The performers enjoyed having this opportunity to present their work in their home city and are keen to explore other opportunities to showcase and develop their work moving forward.
The learning generated from the project and its pilot phase in 2024, including the value of ensuring a long lead in time, techniques and approaches to support participants creatively and ways to prepare and make accessible mainstream performance opportunities will feed in to our future work in this area and ensure a broad range of voices continue to be heard in mainstream spaces.
One participant commented: “I enjoyed reading my poetry, standing up and sharing my childhood memories from when I was a non-verbal little girl. Working in the Outside The Box café and taking part in this has made me feel confident and able to tell people who I am.”
Another added: “Being able to express myself through poetry. Self advocacy poem, putting how it makes me feel into words. I read the poem out at a meeting and will probably use it again.”
A parent attending the event reflected: “What an evening we had! Joyous and funny, but also incredibly moving. Chris’ wonderful support has clearly given our son not only a voice, but also the confidence and ability to use poetry to communicate about issues and feelings he usually internalises. This was really powerful.”
Outside The Box Support Worker Kate Lofthouse commented: “Members worked incredibly hard, and with Chris’ expert guidance and enthusiasm, it was wonderful to see their confidence grow as they prepared for their performance. On the night they overcame their nerves and performed brilliantly, their poems were fantastic, offering a wonderful insight into their lives, views and imagination.”
Chris Singleton added: “Word Out was a celebration of courage and creativity. Members shared work that was personal, funny and full of heart. It was a privilege to see their confidence grow and their words light up the room, a powerful reminder of what happens when everyone is given the space to share their story.”
This project was delivered as part of the BBC Contains Strong Language Bradford 2025 Engagement Programme. It was produced by Word Up North in partnership with the BBC and Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture. BBC Contains Strong Language Bradford 2025 was funded by Arts Council England and Bradford 2025.