Welcoming Environment Poetry

Our Poet-in-Residence, Rev. Lucy Berry, explored what it means to respond to the Hostile Environment with welcome. Listen to her poems, and read some questions for further discussion, here.

A Chair Like That

Questions:

1. What is the poem saying about different kinds of welcome?
2. What do you think is meant by ‘poorly made’ and ‘splinters’?
3. How can a welcome “bear what it’s meant to bear”?

Read A Chair Like That

If Parables Mean Nothing

Questions:

1. What are the choices offered in this poem?
2. What is meant by “tell Joseph to go home”?
3. What are the “ancient ways of welcome” the poem refers to?
4. What are the “loads” to do?

Read If Parables Mean Nothing

Waves

Questions:

1. What are the first two lines of the poem making clear?
2. What do you believe is the anxiety about Asylum seekers?
3. Do you believe in the concept of sanctuary? Why?

Read Waves

Jesus-Under-the-Dirt

1. Why is contamination such a significant theme in the Bible?
2. In what way is it significant for us?
3. How can this filthy, raving, sobbing person be Jesus?

Read Jesus Under the Dirt

Some Kinds of Spitting

Questions:

1. Who is ‘He’? And what is He asking?
2. What does the Bible have to say about welcome?
3. Do Bible-people always live up to that?
4. Is there a limit, or a time-limit, to welcome?

Read Some Kinds of Spitting

What is the Hostile Environment? Find out more here:

End Hostility

In December 2018 and January 2019, we explored what a welcoming environment for refugees and asylum seekers would look like through a blog series. Read the blogs here:

Welcoming Environment Blogs

Read a text version of all the poems here:

Welcome Environment Poems