The Language of Care: Week 7

Join award-winning poet Rachel Long for an inspiring, eight-week poetry poetry journey offering carers the opportunity to pause, reflect and transform lived experience into powerful creative writing.

Across eight supportive workshops, you will explore themes of care, identity, resilience, memory, love, loss, joy, and hope through contemporary and classic poems, imaginative writing prompts and creative discussion.

Who is the event series for?

The Language of Care is a free workshop series for unpaid carers aged 18+ living in London, with priority given to carers based in Lewisham. We define a carer as anyone who provides unpaid support to a family member, partner, friend, or neighbour who could not manage without their help due to illness, disability, mental health needs, addiction, or age.

Whether you’re caring for someone every day or supporting them in quieter, less visible ways, these workshops invite you to honour your own experiences alongside the care you give to others.  

Together, we’ll ask questions such as:

• How does caring shape the way we experience time, memory, love, and loss?
• What parts of ourselves become hidden, transformed, or strengthened through caring?
• How can poetry capture the rhythms, rituals, and quiet moments of everyday life?
• What does hope look like alongside uncertainty?
• Where do joy, humour, anger, tenderness, and resistance coexist?
• How can writing become an act of witnessing, self-expression, and connection?

All workshops are free to attend. No previous writing experience is necessary, just curiosity and a willingness to explore. 

Developed as part of the Lewisham Borough of Literature campaign. The Language of Care emerged from a successful pilot with carers from Imago Community and has since expanded into a full creative community project led by London Writers Centre.