Making Literature Travel

Steven Hitchins is a poet from Rhondda Cynon Taf in South Wales, who graduated with a BA, MA and PhD in English and Creative Writing from Aberystwyth University. His experience as a further education English Language and Literature teacher has formed a basis for the collaborative aspects of his poetry. A localised poet in the sense of being site-specific, he observes and works with the historical, geological and linguistic processes of his surrounding areas with imagination. His poetry has been published extensively in publications such as The Literary Pocket Books, Poetry Wales, Fire, Chimera; and he has collaborated with other Welsh poets and artists on a number of projects.

Steven was selected as one of the writers from Wales to take part in the Ulysses’ Shelter Residency programme for 2020, but was unable to travel. He worked on a poetry project based on his location and the sensory experiences of walking and observing his surroundings to create a textual space of heightened awareness. The poetry itself  includes multimedia recordings made of the area, which undergo algorithmic transformations to interrogate ideas of place and rhythms of routine, as well as collage and performance. He also took part in a virtual residency in Mljet with other participants of the project.