{"id":4618,"date":"2026-04-21T09:33:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T08:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/?p=4618"},"modified":"2026-04-21T11:08:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T10:08:41","slug":"the-breadbasket-collage-conversation-and-the-poetic-nursing-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/the-breadbasket-collage-conversation-and-the-poetic-nursing-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"The Breadbasket: Collage, Conversation, and the Poetic Nursing Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a number of years I have used collage in my teaching spaces. It began simply enough: magazines, scissors, glue sticks, scraps of colour and text scattered across tables. Students cutting and arranging fragments of the world into something new. At first glance it looks playful, almost childlike. But over time it became something deeper,\u00a0a way of thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently I lent the breadbasket to a dear friend, Athene Lane Martin. She is an occupational therapist by profession, but that description barely touches what matters. She is someone whose presence carries warmth, someone I am genuinely excited to hug when I see her at work. That says more about our shared way of seeing the world than any job title ever could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The breadbasket carries the tools of collage, but it also carries a story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many ways, it carries the origin story of the Poetic Nursing Heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A Small Origin Story<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the breadbasket became part of my teaching, collage entered my life through a friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A huge nod goes to Ben Sanders, whose work under the banner \u201clastnightacollagesavedmylife\u201d<\/em> quietly changed how I saw creative practice. Ben is part of that brilliant lineage of analogue collage artists who treat fragments of paper the way poets treat language, cutting, rearranging, discovering meaning in unexpected juxtapositions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watching his work unfold was a reminder that collage isn\u2019t just an art technique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a way of thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without that spark, the breadbasket probably never would have appeared in my teaching rooms at all. So, it feels right to acknowledge that the thread began there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes inspiration arrives exactly like collage itself,  a fragment from someone else that suddenly fits into your own life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.threads.com\/@lastnightacollagesavedmylife?xmt=AQF0DobvVz8HxgVN4TrtckTX3sj0m5M1QAjshpIb-U-R-_g<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is my chosen community of practice\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where the Breadbasket Began<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The breadbasket traces its lineage not to a classroom but to the wandering poets of another time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the restless roads of On the Road by Jack Kerouac.
To the thunderous voice of Howl by Allen Ginsberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the musicians who turned poetry outward toward the public square
Bob Dylan,
Joan Baez,
and Joni Mitchell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These were observers of the human condition. Wanderers. Listeners. (like me)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were, in many ways, hobo poets<\/strong> carrying stories between people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The breadbasket is part of that lineage. It sits quietly in the middle of a room, holding scissors and glue, but also inviting people to pause and notice. To gather fragments of the world and rearrange them. To speak honestly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n


\u201cThe breadbasket.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Different Kind of Dialogue<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an age of rapid opinion and endless digital commentary, something unusual happens when people sit together and make things with their hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social media often divides us into positions and sides. It accelerates judgement and polarisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But collage slows everything down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You cannot polarise someone who is sitting next to you cutting paper.
You cannot dismiss someone whose story emerges slowly through the images they choose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Face-to-face creativity restores something older and more human: conversation as presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The breadbasket becomes a quiet centre point for that conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not a teaching tool exactly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More like a listening device.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n


\u201cFragments becoming something shared.\u201d A DADA-ISM<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking the Pulse of the People<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some time ago I wrote a small poem about the breadbasket. It imagines the basket quietly sitting in the centre of the room, listening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The activist speaks.
The musician sings.
The poet gives something of themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And slowly the breadbasket passes from hand to hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that sense it behaves a little like a nurse: quietly taking the pulse of the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the poem describes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere you sit
Fragile but patient
Listening to the room\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An ode to the breadbasket<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And later:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou feel love
You see change
Taking the pulse of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An ode to the breadbasket<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The breadbasket listens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And through the simple act of making, the room begins to listen too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hobo Poet and the Classroom<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sometimes describe myself as a hobo poet in a nursing school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That might sound unusual in a profession often associated with protocols, competencies, and clinical precision. But nursing has always been more than technique. At its heart it is a human-to-human encounter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collage invites that encounter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students begin with fragments, images, words, colours, and slowly assemble meaning. The process mirrors something essential about care itself: listening, noticing, holding space, allowing stories to form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The breadbasket reminds me that education does not always begin with answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes it begins with gathering fragments together around a table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Reflection in the Lake<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the breadbasket has travelled through the rooms of my teaching for some time, then now it sits somewhere new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Athene Lane Martin<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not as an object being handed over, but more like a reflection appearing across the surface of a lake, familiar, but reframed by another pair of eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Athene works as mental health promoter, though like most people who carry care into the world, that title only tells part of the story. What matters more is the way she notices things. The patience with which she sits beside people and allows meaning to emerge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That feels very close to the spirit of the breadbasket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collage asks us to gather fragments. Occupational therapy often asks something similar: how small pieces of activity, creativity, and presence help people reassemble a life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So somewhere now, perhaps on another table in another room, the breadbasket sits again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if I look across the water carefully enough, I can see its reflection there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Passing It On<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Objects that hold stories should travel between people. They should move the way songs and poems move \u2014 hand to hand, room to room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because the real purpose of the breadbasket was never the collage materials it carries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its purpose is something simpler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To gather people together.
To listen.
To notice the pulse of the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And to remind us that the most powerful conversations still happen face to face, human to human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Athene Lane Martin<\/u><\/strong>. Writes\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The breadbasket came to me as just that a basket of wonder to share with others. I wanted to open up<\/a> the memories and experiences of students, to learn about their lives, to hear their voices. Collage allows you to be creative. It allows you to stop and wonder. To find joy in an image, to think about a word, or a letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The busy-i-ness of life stops. People who do not know each other when they arrive are speaking and sharing materials, looking out bits for those, noticing what others are doing. The clock seems to stop, and people become immersed in the here and now. Beautiful images emerge and people look back at their creations, in slight wonder at their work. You see a pride in the creases of a smile appearing, not necessarily fully formed, but there all the same. Here people fine a generosity and an acceptance. Somehow the playing field is levelled out. Those that are hesitant to speak or wonder what they have to say, find a voice and their stories unfold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collage allows all of us to be creative. We can be political, we can be reflective and we can be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s within the sharing that we live<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s within the sharing that we love<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s within the sharing that we become<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hobopoet<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baez, Joan (1975) Diamonds & Rust<\/em>. New York: A&M Records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dylan, Bob (1964) The Times They Are A-Changin\u2019<\/em>. New York: Columbia Records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ginsberg, Allen (1956) Howl and Other Poems<\/em>. San Francisco: City Lights Books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kerouac, Jack (1957) On the Road<\/em>. New York: Viking Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mitchell, Joni (1971) Blue<\/em>. Los Angeles: Reprise Records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sanders, Ben (n.d.) lastnightacollagesavedmylife<\/em>. Available via Instagram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom Delahunt (2025) \u2018The shared palette: how philosophy, art, and phenomenology can help nursing education heal trauma\u2019, Practice<\/em>. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/25783858.2025.2603937<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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