Online Exhibit: Poets and the Past

In 2016 Norwich Historical Society asked eight local poets to browse through our collections, find something that captured their imagination and compose a poem about it. The results are as varied and surprising as the lives and times that inspired them.

Every schoolchild knows that poetry is a wonderful way to bring history to life (“Listen my children and you shall hear….”). NHS brings that concept to the local level. Interaction with objects prompts reflection about the lives of those who used them, about what connects us to those lives and about how we are different.

Click on the artifacts in the sidebar to read the poems and artist statements.