Inner Room is a project that creates space for people to be creative. It is rooted in the Christian faith, welcoming people of all faiths and none. Inner Room believes that:
- Everyone is creative (including you)
- Everyone can approach universal truths through the particular details of their lives
- Everyone is invited to be creative by a creative God
As of summer 2025, Inner Room is taking a break, and any future activity will be advised to the existing mailing list. From 2019 to 2025 the project was facilitated by the poet Helen Evans, who sadly had to resign for personal reasons. The Room2Write group is continuing, independently of Inner Room, after more than four years of dedication to early morning writing sessions. Well done to them!
Why the name?
Two reasons. It suggests that feeling of inner spaciousness – what psychologists call ‘flow’ – which is such a helpful way of being when you’re creating something. And you may also recognise the reference to the bible verse Matthew 6:6 – which in some translations says: when you pray, enter your inner room and close the door. So we hope Inner Room has been and always will be a place where you can relax and give your creative self some private space, aware (if you’re a Christian) that you’re in the presence of a loving, supportive, creative God.
Prayer for people exploring their creativity
Creator God,
whose Son spoke in story and in metaphor
and whose Spirit guards and guides us,
help us to know in our hearts
that you have created us in your image
to be creative.
May we become like little children:
playful as we learn,
open to the wonder of creation
and trusting in your love.
And may your creativity flow through us
to enable us and those whose lives we touch
to grow in faith, hope and love.
Amen
Background
In church jargon, Inner Room is a ‘pioneer lay ministry’ from the Parish of Central Exeter, facilitated from 2019 to 2025 by the poet Helen Evans with the support of a team drawn from the parish and beyond, which included the Rector, Sheila Swarbrick, and the Exeter-based poet and novelist, Richard Skinner. It ran initially until Spring 2021, when it was evaluated and the decision taken to continue into 2022. Following a survey of participants, the team at the evaluation in April 2022 decided to continue. Inner Room was inspired in part by two courses: Exploring Christian Spirituality, run by the Diocese of Exeter, and Foundations in Christian Ministry, run by the South West Ministry Training College. Inner Room is one way the parish offers the breathing space that’s part of its mission, within its overall ministry of love and reconciliation, and in line with its commitment to being an inclusive church where all are welcomed. Scroll on to read what we achieved in our first few years.
2024
In 2024, more than 30 people came to our National Poetry Day celebration in St Stephen’s Church, Exeter, in October for a creative writing workshop followed by a lunchtime poetry reading from Inner Room poets and a superb reading by the nationally renowned Devon-based poet Anthony Wilson. Our heartfelt thanks to him. Anthony is the author of six collections of poetry, the most recent of which is The Wind and the Rain (Blue Diode, 2023). His prose memoir of cancer, Love for Now (Impress Books), was published in 2012. Anthony is also the editor of the anthology Lifesaving Poems (Bloodaxe, 2015), based on his blog of the same name, and a collection of essays, Deck Shoes (Impress Books, 2019). He lives in Plymouth and his website is a rich resource for poetry lovers – anthonywilsonpoetry.com
In August 2024 we held the fourth of our Room at the Well writing workshops in person in Exeter, inspired by the gospel story of the woman at the well and drawing upon the wells of creativity in our own lives. Our regular Room2Write group continued fortnightly on Zoom, and a group where its members offer feedback on each other’s work began to meet, too. And in June 2024, seven Inner Room poets read at a Poetry Night at St Nicholas Priory in Exeter at a fundraiser to support the maintenance of this amazing ancient building.
2023
In 2023, we held our fifth celebration of National Poetry Day, at St Stephen’s Church, welcoming Professor Ralph Pite of the University of Bristol for two 45-minute talks (plus Q&A) on the theme of how poetry can help us to respond to the climate emergency. There was also a lunchtime poetry reading. Many thanks to Professor Pite for an enjoyable and stimulating day, and to everyone who attended, read at lunchtime and took part in the discussions. Also in October we were delighted to return to the Diocese of Exeter’s Spiritual Direction Network for a study day attended by people from Devon and neighbouring counties, looking at poetry inspired by Scripture – we wrote some poems of our own, too. The Room2Write fortnightly Monday morning writing group continued meeting on Zoom. Meanwhile, Poetry at the Priory was a half-day in November exploring a wonderful ancient Exeter building, St Nicholas’ Priory, and Room by the River was a one-day Advent poetry retreat in December at a beautiful riverside location in Devon.
2022
Over the winter of 2021/22, Inner Room took a bit of a breather after producing and launching its anthology, The Watchful Heart. We celebrated at the Christmas Reading Room, a Zoom bring-a-poem event, and marked Burns Night with Room to Listen – another enjoyable bring-a-poem. We also held the first Room at the Well creative writing workshop in St Olave’s Church. For National Poetry Day, we opened St Stephen’s Church all day with a range of writing prompts, in Room to Explore, as well as for a poetry reading. And the regular fortnightly Room2Write sessions continued – the participants began to create their own prompts for the group. Good for them!
2021
Above are pictured 15 of the 20 writers who contributed to The Watchful Heart, the anthology of poetry and prose that came from the first year of Inner Room, along with its editors, Richard Skinner and Helen Evans. More than 40 people came to St Stephen’s Church on National Poetry Day to celebrate its publication. Pictured below is one of the contributors holding a copy of the anthology, and you can read about the launch here
Also in 2021, the Monday morning Room2Write sessions continued, with emailed writing prompts in May and June followed by fortnightly Zoom sessions during July, August and September. A poetry resource list was on offer to support readers in their own explorations. Finally, two Connecting with Poems groups, where five writers bring their own work for peer feedback, continued to meet on Zoom.
2020
The first year of Inner Room ran from March 2020 to April 2021, the first year of the Covid pandemic. Over that year, our creative readers and creative writers enjoyed:
- 111 sessions
- offering 234 spaces
- in 21 different groups
- involving 142 contact hours
- and including 40 one-to-one writing tutorials.
In our end-of-year survey of 33 participants, 92 per cent rated Inner Room as excellent and 8 per cent as good (response rate: 25 people/75 per cent). We received more than ten A4 pages of detailed replies about the experience. We can’t possibly do those comments justice here, but it’s clear that Inner Room opening up when so much closed down meant a huge amount to our readers and writers. If you’re one of them, thank you so much for your helpful, heartening responses. Your commitment and enthusiasm informed the team’s decision to continue running Inner Room. Here is the story so far:
Phase 3 of Inner Room ran from February to April 2021. Four groups of writers, from beginners to experienced, took part in one of two workshop series: The Craft of Poetry or Connecting with Poems. Our writing sessions, Room2Write, continued by popular demand. Kudos to all of you who turned up regularly for the 7.30am slot on Monday mornings – aka pyjama poetry. The Parish Reading Room also continued. Its sessions in February and March drew upon Lent poetry books, including Janet Morley’s anthology, The Heart’s Time. And in Easter week we held three bring-a-poem events, on the theme of ‘Joy’.
Phase 2 of Inner Room ran from November 2020 to January 2021. We held two series of poetry writing workshops – The Craft of Poetry and The Creative Process – as well as a larger poetry appreciation session – The Parish Reading Room. Writing workshop participants also took part in Room2Write, an experiment to help those of us who sometimes struggle to create a regular writing routine. Our popular bring-a-poem events included the Christmas Reading Room and Room Over The Border, to mark Burns Night.
Phase 1 ran until October 2020, on Zoom, with a larger poetry reading group and three smaller writing groups, all meeting monthly. Events included: What is Poetry?; What does Poetry do?; Poetry and Prayer; Faith, Doubt and Poetry; English Poetry – an overview; God, Love and Poetry; The Creative Process – a series of four creative writing workshops; and Inner Room on Zoom – an online poetry reading on National Poetry Day, October 1st, 2020.
Inner Room launched in March 2020 with a one-day poetry workshop at The Old Deanery, in Exeter, for members of Devon’s spiritual direction network. Patch a few words together – a title taken from the Mary Oliver poem, Praying – looked at how to use poems in spiritual accompaniment and offered the opportunity to explore the creative process through writing. Prior to that, Inner Room ran a pilot workshop on Poetry and prayer in St Stephen’s Church on National Poetry Day 2019.
