Poet / Artist Paul Conneally works with passers by in Loughborough’s Queens Park to turn the 1908 bandstand into a Renga Bandstand.

The bandstand rather than being a ‘renga platform’ in the sense that the renga was written on it became the focal space for the ‘passer-by renga’ – the master-poet engaging with passers by and encouraging them to read the verses gone before (each one as written attached to the bandstand) and write the next link and shift verse.

A knitting group with their knitted picnic were invited to sit and knit in the bandstand and a morris dancer band too. The renga bandstand was strung with poems from the ongoing project ‘The Sound of Water’ and the renga built itself up around the outside rails of the bandstand. Here it is at the end of the day as things were calming down.

Jemma Bagley of Charnwood Arts co-ordinated the work.