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Ellen Renton—Home
  • About
  • Poetry
  • Shows
  • Collaborations
  • Other Work
  • News
  • Contact
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Poetry

My writing style combines the influences of Scottish traditions and contemporary poetics, and I strive to create work that exists happily on both the page and the stage.

  • An Eye For An Eye For An Eye

    Pamphlet For Stewed Rhubarb Press, 2021

    An Eye For An Eye For An Eye explores what it means to grow up a girl, and how this experience intersects with disability and visual impairment. These poems concern themselves with looking: looking back over a childhood, looking again at what’s in front of us, and looking forward to possible futures. They visit girlhood and myth, blindness and friendship. They celebrate the freedom, shame, and awkwardness of coming to terms with our own bodies, and they ask what it means to look different and see differently.

    If you’d like a personalised copy, get in touch via the Contact page with your order.

    Buy via Etsy here

    Press

    This witty pamphlet uses original language and form to take the reader beyond common perceptions.

    — Sphinx
    An Eye For An Eye For An Eye pamphlet cover: orange background with a yellow face, reads ‘An Eye For An Eye For An Eye, Ellen Renton, Stewed Rhubarb Press’

    A superb collection where every poem and word are crucial

    — The Fountain
  • IF YOU'VE SEEN IT YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT

    Installation For DAO, Ongoing

    IF YOU’VE SEEN IT YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT is a photography and poetry project developed through the Edwin Morgan Trust and Disability Arts Online Associate Artist programme.

    The final exhibition will be held at AGITATE gallery in Edinburgh, from the 17th – 31st of May. Click here for more information about the gallery, and details of the free launch event.

    An audio guide leads its listener through a series of images. A character in itself – the guide takes on the role of an unreliable narrator with a shifting tone: at times direct, at points abstractly poetic, and sometimes reflective. These inconsistencies and fluctuations in approach conjure up questions around the ways in which our eyes and our minds often sit at odds with each other – does the audio match up with what our own vision makes of the photographs? How many ways can an image be read? Is seeing really believing or is the old adage flawed?

    The work uses as its starting point inspiration taken from Morgan’s instamatic style – the technique of writing poetry about images, both real and imagined – and combines this with ruminations on the art of photography from a visually impaired perspective, cultural understandings of sight, and the lived experience of the failings of unhelpful image description. Together, the images and text pose the question: what does ‘seeing’ really mean?

     

     

    Read an interview about the associateship here

    Part of the process of the associateship has involved writing blogs for Disability Arts Online – read or listen to The Bigger Picture here

    Exhibition poster image: trees in the Cairngorms, their branches and pine needles covered in snow. The sky is mostly grey with a glimpse of sun breaking through the clouds
  • Disability History Month Poetry Trail

    Installation For Sustrans, 2022

    The poetry trail, commissioned by Sustrans for Disability History Month, responds to the history of Edinburgh’s blind institutions, and the more general topic of work for blind and visually impaired people.

    The trail is located (until the 16th of December 2022) between the Innocent Tunnel and the Innocent Railway Bridge on Edinburgh’s Cycle Route One.

    As well as the physical trail, the project also includes two led walks along the route, and a performance film.

    Book a free spot on a led walk here

    Performance film of the trail poems

    Credits

    Writer
    Ellen Renton
    Filmmaker
    Douglas Tyrrell Bunge
    Box maker
    Maria Makaroff

    Video

    Project Overview with Sustrans

    Video

    STV report on the project

    A screenshot taken from the performance film for the project. Ellen sitting on stone steps in the centre of the image, wearing a black coat and green tartan scarf, reading from a grey notebook. The photo is taken on Cycle Route One in Edinburgh
  • One Tree Hill

    Journal Contribution For Wet Grain Poetry, 2022

    Wet Grain is a Scottish poetry journal for new writing.

    One Tree Hill, a poem about cinematic frankness, was published in Issue Three.

    Purchase Wet Grain here

    One Tree Hill reading

    Cover of Wet Grain Poetry journal issue three - a black inky line drawing on a white background, with Wet Grain written in thin, mustard yellow letters at the centre
  • What I See When I See This

    Journal Contribution For Two Destination Language , 2021

    In March 2021, a group of 29 creative practitioners from across Scotland came together in virtual spaces to think, talk, listen and dream, learning from each other and through the act of dialogue. FIELD Scotland: On Value is a printed product of this dialogue. These writings reflect some of their thinking, on where we are now and some paths forward. Here you will find more questions than answers, and we hope these will nudge you into new thoughts, collective actions, responsibilities and futures.

    ’What I See When I See This’ is a poetic reflection on competition and rejection within the arts.

    Buy FIELD Scotland: On Value here
    Two piles of FIELD journals with colourful, predominantly pink, front covers. The front cover reads ‘FIELD SCOTLAND: ON VALUE’ The back cover lists the names of all contributors
    Cover design by Katherina Radeva
  • Two Poems

    Magazine Contribution For Pushing Out The Boat, 2021

    Pushing Out The Boat, North-East Scotland’s unique literary and arts journal, publishes high-quality prose, poetry and art selected from a unique blend of the global and the local.

    in my best dreams, a poem about long-distance friendship, and Reel, a poem about playing the fiddle, featured in Issue 16 of the magazine.

    More about Issue 16 here
    Cover of Pushing Out The Boat magazine: PUSHING OUT THE BOAT, NORTH EAST SCOTLAND’S MAGAZINE OF NEW WRITING AND VISUAL ARTS, ISSUE 16
    Cover art by Jess Petrie
  • The Things That Keep Me Tired

    Journal Contribution For Not Going Back To Normal, 2020

    Not Going Back to Normal is a collective disabled artists manifesto, created in Scotland in 2020. The project comprises 49 artworks and texts responding to a call for ideas for a radically accessible arts world, and was curated by Harry Josephine Giles and Sasha Saben Callaghan.

    The Things That Keep Me Tired is a poem about trying to conform with the inaccessible expectations of the arts sector.

    Read the poem here
    Not Going Back To Normal Banner Image: the porcelain head of a doll stands out from a black background. The face is covered in tiny cracks and the top of the head is broken, revealing Victorian scrap paper and flowers inside. One of the doll’s eyes is ringed with pearls. It wears drop earrings and a choker decorated with a gold key.

    We’ve exhausted a lot of nice strategies – there’s nothing left but just telling the truth about what it’s like to be a disabled artist.

    — Harry Josephine Giles - Not Going Back To Normal in ArtReview
  • Coulter’s Candy

    Film For Spot On Lancashire, 2020

    Spot on Shorts is a digital storytelling series produced by The Space and Lancashire Libraries, designed to offer some brief respite from the news, or stress of lockdown.

    Coulter’s Candy is a story about four strong women who in some way, can teach us about the world. Taking a 19th century sweet-selling jingle as a starting point, learn about Mum, Ruby, Han Lou, and Granny.

     

    Read more about Spot on Shorts here

    Coulter’s Candy

    Logo: Spot on Lancashire.
  • BBQ

    Magazine Contribution For Spoonfeed x New Writing, 2020

    Spoonfeed is an online literary magazine publishing creative and experimental food writing, edited by Kat Payne Ware.

    BBQ featured in their Pocket Issue which was published in collaboration with New Writing at the University of East Anglia.

    Read here the poem here

    Video

    BBQ Excerpt

    Spoonfeed cover image: Spoonfeed x New Writing Ed. Kat Payne Ware, Sean Wai Keung, Andrew Cowan. (Featured writers) Al Anderson, Cai Draper, Cat Woodward, Chloe L Yeah, Ellen Renton, Inua Ellams, Joe Dunthorne, Katy Mack, Kinga White, Laia Sales Merino, Memoona Zahid, Meryl Pugh.Pocket Issue @SPOONFEEDmag @NewWritingNet December 2020
    Credit: Caitlin Allen
  • Young for My Age

    Magazine Contribution For Magma, 2020

    Magma 77: Act Your Age is a collection of poems, articles, and interviews that interrogate age and all its connotations. This edition of Magma was edited by Gboyega Odubanjo, Selina Rodrigues and Christine Webb.

    Young For My Age is a reflection on the feeling that everything is growing at a pace you can’t keep up with.

    More about Magma 77 here
    Magma Poetry 77: Act Your Age cover. Liz Berry, Maggie Butt, John Greening, Jamal Mehmood, Clare Pollard, The Repeat Beat Poet.

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