L. London

For just over two years I've been researching female poets, inspirational women and fascinating facts of the First World War for a series of commemorative exhibitions. The exhibitions have mainly been held in the north west of England in Lancashire and The Wirral Peninsula. As I've been funding this myself, we deliberately kept it fairly simple with panels A3 size and printed in black and white, featuring brief biographical details a photo and, where relevant one or two poems. Everyone who has seen the exhibitions has said how good they are. I've also collected quite a few contacts and found out about other exhibitions elsewhere in the UK, as well as commemorative shows such as "Bullets and Daffodils" which is about Wilfred Owen and based on The Wirral and "Merry it was to laugh there" also about WW1 poetry but based in Essex. I'd love to take the exhibition around the country but finding venues that don't charge is quite a challenge. A few weeks ago I had a thought - why not put the exhibition on a canal boat and use the waterways of Britain to take it to a wider audience? The idea won't go away so I began to put out feelers and I've had quite a good response. Someone recently suggested I contact the Canal World Forum and I also discovered there is a Canal Poet Laureate. I haven't a clue where to start. Has anyone any ideas please? Details of my project are on three weblogs which are inter-linked, the first one being www.femalewarpoets.blogspot.co.uk because that is where I began when Dean Johnson, author of "Bullets and Daffodils", asked me to produce an exhibition about women poets for his museum The Wilfred Owen Story in Argyle Street, Birkenhead, Wirral. Best Regards