Tees Women Poets

A woman's place is on stage

,

Why so many witches?

Wordy witches is a theme we come back to often, in a light-hearted way. Is it because as poets we can’t resist the alliteration? Maybe our feminist souls are drawn to the power of crones and the history of women’s oppression? Or perhaps as performers we’ve never quite grown out of dressing up?

Whatever it is, we’ve been having some fun with benevolent witches this summer. You may have been lucky enough to catch Dianne Casey’s alter-ego the Sea Witch at Seaton Carew beach huts last week, and even lingered a moment to make a wish and write a line of poetry with her?

  • Close up of the shiny blue table with lots of colourful paper and signs about the Sea witch
  • Dianne in her witches hat is sitting with a young girl at a shiny blue table covered with sea shells, paper, and other crafting materials
  • Danne, a white woman in her fifties with long blonde hair, is dressed as a witch and sitting in the entrance of a yellow beach hut called 'Sandy Bottoms'
  • close up of three strips of paper against a shiny blue table; the strips have lines of poetry on them - I wish for crab claws clicking a happy tune to carry in my pocket

Dianne says – Well, what a day that was! The  little beach hut turned into something magic with our “Make a Wish with a Sea Witch” activity, and honestly, it had us all buzzing. The hut itself already had a name that made people smile – folk were even asking if the huts were all named after SpongeBob SquarePants! Next to us was a lovely lass selling pebbles she’d crafted herself. It was her first time ever selling, and she said, “If not now, when?”  proper inspiring that. On the other side we had a 14-year-old entrepreneur giving it a go too. Shows you, doesn’t it, that creativity and graft come at any age round here. Our crew had a laugh as well – Poet Kay was dressed up as a cheeky seagull, and me, I went full Sea Witch. People loved it. Families, kids, even grown-ups with no kids in tow  they all joined in, making wishes, having chats, just enjoying the bit of magic. What surprised me most was how far people had come. Hardly spoke to any locals – folk had travelled in from all over, which just shows how much pull these beach hut activities have.

Even though the Sea Witch has sailed off on the tide, the magic isn’t over! If you’re in Kirkleatham on 23rd-24th August for Between the Tides festival of family fun, you’re likely to run into The Spellcasters – three weird wyrd word witches who are on a mission to cast a spell to make the whole word happy. It’s a big job, so they need everyone to tell them what’s made them happy at the festival…

And it’s not even Halloween yet!!

←
→

Leave a comment