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A photograph of a carnivorous bog plant with long sticky tendrils

Bog Talk with Rose Ferraby & John Wedgwood Clarke

Bog Talk with Rose Ferraby & John Wedgwood Clarke

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Published on 22 October 2024

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A profile image of Rose Ferraby Blog post by: Rose Ferraby, RENEW Postdoctoral Researcher

At the height of summer, the bogs on Dartmoor are oozing with life and colour. The vivid crimsons and bright yellow-greens of sphagnum moss, the emergence of sundews and bog asphodel, and the whirr of insects around the surface of the water.


A photo of Rose Ferraby and Richard Scott

Above: Rose Ferraby with poet Richard Scott at a pool of sphagnum moss on Dartmoor. 

After a spring of getting to know these sites, this seasonal shift feels somehow personal, rooted by our attentive observations through the year.

As part of our work with Natural England on their Protected Sites Strategy, we’ve been coming out to a number of different peatland sites on Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor to think about how to communicate these landscapes through shifting scales and perspectives. Some are sites currently undergoing restoration by the South West Peatland Partnership (our partner on the project), where ditches are being stitched back into the contours to hold back water and soak the peat once more. Others are cared for by the Wildlife Trust or are just small patches of marooned peatlands within broader agricultural landscapes. Each offers an eye, an ear, into the complex visible and submerged worlds of bogs.

A photograph of a carnivorous bog plant with long sticky tendrils

Above: The carnivorous Round-leaved sundew, embedded amongst the bog, sticky tendrils awaiting prey.

Bogs are mysterious landscapes, often maligned and little understood. They are soaked in myth, and hold rich archives of our cultural and environmental past in their organic stratigraphy. But they are also the canary in the coal mine for our current state of nature. Conversations with collaborators at the South West Peatland Partnership and colleagues at CREWW, (Centre for Resilience in Environment, Water and Waste) here at the university, have given us an understanding of the complex, invisible processes of gas exchange within the bogs of the south-west. Their work allows us to understand bogs as a landscape that is woven into air, water and earth; a breathing mass, a carbon sink.

A photograph of a persona investigating a peat bog

Above: Poet Fiona Benson takes a closer look at the tiny world of sundews and sphagnum mosses.

How then, might we communicate these often fluid, interwoven narratives of these bogs; tell this grand planetary science alongside the tiny tales of organisms, encounters and personal connections? Poetry enables this slip-slide of stories and shifts in perspective. It has the ability to make us feel, and care. It’s also a process that allows us to be out in the landscape in a particular way, searching for ways of capturing and curating these complex worlds.

Above: The delicate Heath spotted orchid also known as the Moorland spotted orchid.

We’ve spent time together quietly exploring and recording our ongoing conversations at sites. There’s been the pleasure of collaboration, of different views and ways of seeing coming together and growing. In July we invited three acclaimed poets for a weekend retreat at Southcombe in Dartmoor: Fiona Benson, Amy Blakemore and Richard Scott. We’ve commissioned them to create new work exploring bogs, and so took them to spend time looking and listening. At Venford Reservoir, we peered into pools where an old tin lode now glimmers with water and life. We studied the lichen, watched a newt, and submerged hydrophones to listen below the surface. The following day we explored a very different bog: a valley mire at Emsworthy. Tucked beneath the tourist-crested Haytor, the mire burst with unexpected life. The oozing ground offered a wealth of plants, fritillary butterflies, and even a chance for some bog bouncing!

A photograph of John Wedgwood Clark

Above: John Wedgwood Clark, Richard Scott and Amy Blakemore take time for reflection.

The poets are now in the process of working on their commissions. When complete, these will form part of the boggy archive of this project but will also be a key component in the education packs for schools which we are working on with the Poetry Society for inclusion in Natural England’s Protected Sites Strategy.

Now halfway through, it’s exciting to see new work emerging from the project, with the thought that these poems, podcasts and schools resources will draw in new engagement and understanding of these fascinating and vital landscapes.

Above: The Bog Talk commissioned poets (from left) Fiona Benson, Amy Blakemore and Richard Scott with John Wedgwood Clarke and Rose Ferraby at Southcombe Barn on Dartmoor.

Listen to the Bog Talk Podcast

Episode 1. Hummock and Stream


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