Wordsworth rewritten by people who experience homelessness

Lyrical Ballads is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published in 1798.

Artistic producer Julia Grime and poet Phil Davenport led creative workshops and on-the-street discussions to explore the text with people who experience homelessness today. New poems were written to reflect the modern-day struggles of homelessness and social inequality.

These were collated to form a leather-bound book named Refuge from the Ravens: New Lyrical Ballads for the 21st Century. The book now has a permanent home in the Wordsworth Archive in Grasmere.

With the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth was saying everyone matters, and that’s what this exhibition says.

Jeff Cowton, principal curator and head of learning at Wordsworth Grasmere

Using the new poems as inspiration, ink drawings and songs were created and displayed alongside the original work in an exhibition at the Wordsworth museum. They will go on tour across the north of England and to the Houses of Parliament.

Jeff Cowton, principal curator and head of learning at Wordsworth Grasmere, said: “The poems in the Lyrical Ballads were to make human the people living around and about Wordsworth. With the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth was saying everyone matters, and that’s what this exhibition says.”