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The poems in this anthology have grown from Everyone's a Seed, a collaborative project, funded by the Deparment for Environment. Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and hosted at Leeds Trinity University (LTU) which aims to engage local communities with issues relating to plant health through Creative Writing. Built around a series of community-based workshops, our aim has been to use the creative-playful, even-practice of poetry writing to bridge the gap between the rather formal- sounding government "Plant Biosecurity Strategy for Great Britain" and "Tree Health Resilience Strategy" and people's everyday experience of, and connection with, plants. The seed was planted by Celia Knight MBE, a consultant in Plant Biology, who attended an LTU poetry workshop in the woodland which we are fortunate enough to have bordering our campus, and became a regular at our open mic, Wordspace. Recognising that poetry could initiate conversations about plant health in many different communities, she sugggested that, along with Charles Lane of Fera Science, we pool our expertise in Creative Writing with regional experts in Plant Science. Together, we sought local communities and developed fun creative workshops to engage them with ideas around plant health. Poems were sourced from these and other creative writing workshops as well as a call for submissions.
