Maddi Crease

Southend’s Maddi Crease has always loved writing, but as a teenager ‘thought poetry was too stuffy and formal for [her] to enjoy’. She credits Mark Strand’s poem ‘Eating Poetry’ as showing her ‘what poetry could be’ and ‘from there [she] was hooked’. She’s found further in the work of poets Neil Hilborn and Cecilia Knapp and also, as a fine art graduate, in the ceramic work of Glen Martin Taylor. She also gives credit to the inspiration of ‘local venues, art exhibitions and open mics’, adding that ‘sometimes you don’t even need to remember exactly what someone said for it to spark something in you.’

Crease ‘fell in love with poetry because sometimes, it’s easier or safer to speak using creative means,’ and finds that ‘poetry gives you the chance to consider your self-expression and ensure it feels right’. Crease uses poetry to ‘digest life, express [her]self, and manifest [her] values,’ and, of performing her poetry, she says ‘it’s quite freeing to be able to share my own narrative without fear of being told it’s wrong. I’ve found a way to share a part of me without doubting it’. 

‘I have come to see poetry as a way of making my own rules, my own understanding of things, my own space. Poetry is an enabler of expression.’

Crease has been an Artist in Residence at Metal Southend, and performed her work live at the Southbank Centre as part of Essex Rebels with English PEN. She has hosted several creative open mic events locally and in 2024 she received Arts Council England funding to write and produce the short poetry film Autistic Joy.

‘People often talk badly of their hometowns, and I understand that, but mostly I love mine,’ says Crease, and it is this positive connection which she intends to draw on through A Poet in Every Port. She also sees the project as ‘an opportunity to be part of a collective of talented poets, and to give time and weight to [her] writing’. She is ‘excited to see what inspiration comes up’.