Meet the Interns - Ruby

Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre is delighted to have a group of interns every year who assist with the Centre's events and projects and run projects of their own! Over the next few weeks we'll be introducing you to these invaluable members of our team, starting with Ruby Daley.

What are you studying at Oxford Brookes?

English Literature and Publishing Media, 2017-2020.

Why did you want to become an intern? What do you enjoy about it?

I applied to the internship programme because I’ve been inspired by the transformation the poetry world has been through recently, with its metamorphosing into a more performance-based art with slam poetry, spoken word and poetry-music culture. I really wanted to get involved with the event organising at the Poetry Centre; to curate my own events from concept to delivery.

I’m extremely excited about the event that I’ve been working on for the past few months, ‘Beatin’ the Blues’, a fusion performance of jazz and poetry. The concept aims to give aspiring poets, particularly students, the platform to share their work and collaborate with other artists from different mediums. We are hosting electronic/jazz band Wandering Wires who will be playing alongside 6 winners of a previously run competition that asked them to respond to one Wandering Wires’ songs. It should be an exciting, vibrant evening and I’m really looking forward to it!

Tell us about one of your favourite poems or collections? Why do you like them?

A collection of poetry that I have felt inspired by recently has been the collection River by Ted Hughes, which is a text I am studying for my English Literature module 'Human-Animal'. I’m very drawn to mystical poetry, particularly work that includes strong symbols or trope and which is often inspired by religious or spiritual material; this collection was the embodiment of this. The imagery is so poignant in that it so subtly blurs the distinction between the human subject and its natural surroundings. The reader is drawn into a kind of spirituality, through the description of the natural sublime, without completely realising it. My favourites from the collection are ‘Creation of Fishes’, ‘After Moonless Midnight’, ‘Salmon Eggs’, and of course ‘The River'.

Beatin’ the Blues is at 8pm on Sunday 28th April in Cafe Tarifa.

You can buy your ticket here.