Riddler in Residence: Green Words Poetry Anthology

Exeter Cathedral Green Words Anthology and Map brings together and locates new poems, riddles and hand-made prints inspired by Exeter Cathedral’s green spaces and the relationship between human culture and the natural world in Exeter and beyond, created by people from the local community and further afield.

Some of these poems germinated during weekly ‘Wandering Words’ sessions with service users at St Petrock’s, who are experiencing homelessness; others sprouted during poetry workshops held both in and around Exeter Cathedral, and as part of Exeter Science Centre’s ‘Climate Exhibition’, where participants examined ways in which people can have a positive impact for our planet in our time of climate crisis. Poems and riddles from The Exeter Book (written around 970AD), which is kept in Exeter Cathedral, offered a rich stimulus for new writing. Contributors also submitted work in response to an open call for new poems on the project theme. Prints were created in the Double Elephant print workshop by members, and also by some of the poets who made illustrations to accompany their poems.

Over the following pages, you may accompany people from all walks of life – gardeners, students, volunteers, teachers, clergy, scientists, printmakers and more – on a shared journey through The Bishop’s Palace Garden (an enclosed ‘secret’ garden that is occasionally open to the public), the Cathedral Green (a popular open space where wildlife and human lives overlap), and Exeter Cathedral (with its superb nature-inspired carvings), then out into the city of Exeter and the world beyond – for everything explored in these poems is happening in a global context.

I hope that you will enjoy reading these poems, viewing the prints, and answering the riddles as much as I have done while editing and compiling this anthology. I am grateful to everyone involved in Green Words for welcoming me back home to Exeter and into the Riddler role, and for contributing to this project and supporting it with so much energy and enthusiasm.

Aly Stoneman, Riddler-In-Residence, Exeter Cathedral (July–November 2023)

Aly Stoneman grew up in Exeter, Devon. Her writing explores the relationship between people and the natural world in a climate crisis. She was founding Poetry Editor at LeftLion Magazine, a winner of The Poetry Society Members Competition [2022] and the Buxton Poetry Prize [2015], and a commissioned poet for Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature [2020]. She is the author of Lost Lands [Crystal Clear, 2012] and her poems have appeared in various journals including Poetry News and Under The Radar. Her doctoral research on coastal erosion poetry was funded by an AHRC Midlands3Cities award [2016-2021].