We hear from GOBs Poetry Collective on their fifth anniversary

Two hundred and fifty years ago, the poet Thomas Gray reflected in a country graveyard, wondering how many ‘mute inglorious Miltons’ lay unrecognised there. How many voices, full of potential, had been shushed by circumstance or self-doubt? In Nottingham today it’s tempting to ask the same question. All those faces on the tram, at the library, in the Co-op, might brim with ideas - but how many get their daydreams cut short with ‘perhaps I shouldn’t’? What we’d need then is a group to help us find our poetic voice, and thankfully some of these exist - one of the best is GOBS Collective.

Founded in the wake of Mouthy Poets' closure in 2017, GOBS was the natural successor, a follow-up collection of poets rising ‘like a phoenix from the ashes’, now recently established as a community interest company. They’re a collective in the most natural sense, pooling ideas and creative resources, turning their quarterly meetings into such a stream of events that they feel like an industry unto themselves; if you removed every other literary group from Notts, there’d still be a poetry scene as long as GOBS was left standing.

In fact their list of achievements reads a bit like an alternate Twelve Days of Christmas: five years in existence, four anthologies published, three live showcases (and three online). There’ve been performances at We Out Here, Nottingham Poetry Festival and Hockley Hustle… book clubs; workshops both in and out of doors; open mics; a regular live spoken-word night called ‘Spraybox’; community mixer events with food and poetic games; and, for the early risers, GOBS’ 6am Sunrise Sessions, which involve mindfulness sessions and, if you’re anything like me, a large blood infusion of coffee. In other words, might as well throw the kitchen sink in there too.

But good ideas are the easy part - what’s harder is keeping the scorching work ethic that it takes to bring them into existence. At the centre of GOBS are figures like Bridie Squires and Cara Thompson, the sort of cheerfully tireless people who, at the end of a cuppa-catch-up, disappear with a cloud of dust and a comedy tornado sound. These stalwarts of the local literary scene might hold the group together, but one of GOBS’ strengths is its commitment to newcomers. Many members have never written poetry before joining, while for others the thought of performing on stage was a cold-sweat nightmare.

We spoke to Sarah Wheatley, just one of the 300 people who GOBS have worked with over the last half-decade. “I had major issues with my confidence,” Sarah told us. “I wasn’t prepared for the warmth, love and support I received instantly from the GOBS community. There is no other community like it - inclusive, safe… united with the feeling that everyone is holding and carrying you.”

Sarah felt her perspective change at lightning speed. “I went from feeling so negative about myself to appearing at the Nottingham Playhouse as part of the GOBS Earth Showcase in the space of nine months… Now I feel I just want to write and perform 24/7! More importantly though, I want to encourage and nurture others in their poetry journey. To help me with this, I’m so thrilled that this year I’ve joined the GOBS Team as a Shadow Poet Facilitator, which is a huge privilege.”

And that’s often how successful creative groups build for the future: they inspire those they work with to join the team, and so the enterprise grows. GOBS Collective has recently been successful with a significant Arts Council grant, and when singing the praises of creative projects that involve people from all communities, it’s easy to get lost in the language of grant applications: deprivation, dynamism, resilience… These are the dull abstract words that funders need, but they describe something very real for Sarah and the hundreds whose lives GOBS has touched. 

If we’re sometimes thought of as on the periphery, then Nottingham needs to be its own champion, and its creative self-confidence will happen one person, and one line of poetry, at a time. Creative fulfilment, the kind GOBS has as its mission, can change the whole colour of your life. And there’s nothing like a homemade golden crown - like the Collective made for their 2024 Poetry Slam - to give your confidence a boost.

So as we raise a (dry February?) toast to the first five years of GOBS, we’re celebrating not only its many specific achievements but the ethos it helps to stir around us - a belief that most people have something remarkable that they haven’t said yet, that poetry can carry us across our misgivings into a better understanding of ourselves. The people who Thomas Gray mourned in his poem are those who ‘kept the noiseless tenor of their way’, but these days we have the opportunity to learn from their silence. Let’s just admit: we’re a gobby city, and we’ve got lots to shout about. 

You can learn more about GOBS Collective and their upcoming events, such as the GOBS Poetry Book Club, happening on Saturday 22 February 22 at Nottingham Central Library via gobscollective.org

@gobscollective