Amy Rugg
When you are 90 feet in the air, it focusses your mind. One week after returning from Dresden, I found myself on the edge of the roof of Coventry Cathedral, where I was abseiling to raise money for a local charity. The abseil coach rolled his eyes as I began shaking uncontrollably. His response was ‘Yeah, that’s normal, love. Just get your feet over onto this batten here. Okay, now…. lean back’. So I did the very thing that terrified me to the core – I leaned back, trusted the air, my own ability to cope and accepted help from strangers and enjoyed the excitement while making my way slowly back down to earth. So it was with my Dresden journey.
For all my nervousness about travelling to a new country and delivering an ambitious week of one-off creative events, Dresden was a delightful place to visit. I had no idea it was so easy first to get to and then navigate around. Compared to National Express coaches in the UK, the Flix Bus was clean, quiet, and comfortable. I wanted to sleep but also not miss anything, so as our coach pulled through the vast Brandenburgh Forest, I soaked my eyes on my first sights of Germany wondering at unfamiliar road signs, new landscapes and neighbourhoods.
Frauenkirche
Annika, who had just returned from her own trip to the UK collected me from the Haupbahnhof. I knew we would be friends as she was wearing a sweatshirt that said: ‘I’m a physicist, of course, I have problems!’ We made our way into the town centre where she gave me a great mini city tour. We stopped and had a light bite and a drink before meeting up with Franca, a languages teacher at a local secondary school, at the Frauenkirche for a special VIP tour. We were introduced to her dear friend, (Caroline?) who has a deep Coventry connection – it was a thoughtful and delightful touch. The tour of the Frauenkirche was illuminating and moving; some of the stories of how Dresden people coped with conflict, hard times and extreme trauma were poignant, thought provoking and ultimately inspirational. The extravagance of the Cathedral’s colourful stylised tiers of baroque architecture was impressive, but what took my breath away were the powerful ‘Lines of Life’ – seven panelled tapestries installed in one of the meeting rooms behind the galleries. The jewelled bands of colour created by artist Heike Wiebelitz wove thousands of samples of donated textiles from all over Germany sampling women’s daily lives to express their resilience, resourcefulness, intimacy, loss and sacrifice.
But the most moving thing for me was looking down into the sanctuary from the upper chambers and seeing Coventry’s Cross of Nails standing in the centre of the main altar. This caught me off guard and seemed both enormously tender and a symbol of strength. The rest of the day I pondered the mystery of love’s powerful capacity to heal places and people mutually torn apart by hate.
Annika’s welcome and hospitality was warm, friendly and thoughtful – I felt instantly safe and at home. It was so lovely to have someone to stay with at their own home rather than an impersonal, sanitised hotel room. The evening meal on my first night was ‘at home’ with Annika and Patrick Wilden, a German poet and author, who completed a writing residency in Coventry in April 2024. Annika’s hospitality helped me to feel I was amongst friends with whom I felt connected to through our collective ‘project’.
Arts Exchange
After dinner, Patrick whisked Annika and I over to Bahnhof Mitte, on Weisseritzstrasse to meet Dresden fine artists and Coventry/Dresden Arts Exchange alumni Lucas Oertel, Kirsten Franke-Gneuss and Tony Watchel. I also met Dresden photographers Christina and Gunter Starke, who were preparing to come to Coventry in November 2025 to photograph local people who worked in Coventry’s automotive industry. I felt strangely at home with such interesting and kindly relative strangers. Walking home late at night with my hosts, quietly talking and laughing, were some of my happiest memories.
Lucas Ortel’s wonderful evening in the studio was an easy way to start creative conversations and meet some of the wonderful Dresden artists who have been key to the Arts Exchange. Although I felt shy at first, a rank amateur amongst such accomplished professionals, Lucas and everyone put me right at ease by sharing about their interests and creative processes. I loved hearing how each person approached their disciplines, tackled challenges and found inspiration.
Meeting other artists was an excellent introduction to the creative Dresden communities. The breadth of disciplines was exciting – a print maker, painters, sculptors, two photographers, musicians, another poet (plus one physicist!) – for me the perfect combination!
A Grand Day Out
The Tuesday interval between my arrival and delivery of commissions provided a period of breathing space. Three key elements to the success of a brief and intense residency such as this, are, in my opinion, allowing time for the facilitation of meaningful conversations, the building of friendships and sufficient time to rest (for everyone involved). Patrick was an excellent tour guide and introduced me to the impressive Lingnerschloss (Lingner Palace) imposing itself over a cliff edge of verdant vineyard; to the right was Dresden, to the left the hills of Bohemia. And of course, the famous Blaues Wunder bridge (I call it the bridge that would not die) overlooking the mighty Elba meandering under a breezy blue sky full of all my favourite clouds. Had they ordered them specially?!
That evening we gathered together at Schillergarten restaurant with Rainer, Volkmar, Andi, Patrick, Annika and two poets, Ann Atkins (co-host of Fire and Dust Coventry’s longest running poetry open mic and a published poet) and her wife Tracy Morris who had travelled from Coventry. Ann and Tracy were holidaying in Berlin and joined us from Tuesday for the rest of the week. I enjoyed my meal of sausage and mash and sauerkraut. Eating meals together was key to my being able to settle in and get to know people.
Gymnasium Sessions
On Wednesday 21st September, I awoke just before dawn and checked my preparations one last time. Franca generously collected me from outside Annika’s home and drove me to the Hans Erlwein Gymnasium to deliver a morning of ‘poetry adventure’ workshops in two year 7 classes, one year 8 and a combined class of three year 11’s. The students were quiet at first, but soon warmed up, read and discussed poetry then bravely composed their own striking stanzas. Like abseiling, the anticipation was much more terrifying than just jumping off the edge and doing it. I was looked after by Franca, Mrs. Koch and an impressive and inspiring team – teaching teenagers is a challenge that they made look easy. A delightful welcome lunch and package of gifts was presented to me in the teachers’ office and I felt humbled and grateful.
I planned unique, age-appropriate sessions for each year group aimed at speaking to their life experience. The ‘poetry adventures’ were interactive and drew on my students’ responses and expressed interests. The first two sessions with Mrs Stange’s Year 8’s and Mr Bauer’s Year 7’s students were understandably reserved; I was a foreign stranger trying to engage young adolescents with the vagaries of poetry in the very early morning.
Near the end of the second lesson, I looked up as a strident alarm spit the air and students shuffled to their feet. ‘What’s happening?!’ I asked. ‘A fire drill, I’m afraid!’ explained my host, Franca. We walked outside, passing the Headmaster who smiled at me and said ‘It is reality!’
Before taking up my residency, I reflected that the number of my commissions felt ambitious, if not a little overwhelming. I comforted myself with the thought that with my school workshops: ‘it isn’t as if I will have to meet the whole school…’ but as I was ushered out onto the front lawn with around 850 students and teachers filing past me to form neat lines on the grass, I relaxed as I had, in fact, meet nearly the whole school in the end, and I was, of course, fine.
The rest of the day continued to be filled with inspiring and rewarding interactions with teachers and students. The second group of Year 7’s, perhaps buoyed by their brief outdoor intermission, responded with warmth and verve as we acted out a poem together in call and response. As we twirled, waved pencil cases in the air and spoke lively rhyming stanzas to one another, the mood was almost jubilant and many shyly ‘high fived’ and thanked me on their way out to their next lesson.
For the fourth session, I worked with a group of three combined Year 11’s who created free verse poetry in small group collaborations. At the beginning of the lesson, a young female student timidly delivered a message of welcome on behalf of the whole group, and I again felt humbled and grateful for the opportunity to work with such amazing young people. Their poetry ranged from the whimsical and droll to the more thoughtful sentiments about their lives ‘Beyond These Walls’.
After a short break for lunch with the language teachers, I was invited to work with one final class, a tutor group of Year 12’s who, their teacher, Mrs Koch, informed me were keen for a visit from a UK poet. This was a small group of around ten students who were quiet at first, but engaged with thoughtfulness and reflection, including one young male student whose poetry dealt truthfully and poignantly with his uncertainty and fears about the world outside school. Of all the students, I felt his creative output was the most effective at expressing human vulnerability – an essential aspect of creating poetry. Taking my leave with gratitude and clutching my little bag of wonderful goodies, including Mrs. Koch’s excellent chutney… ‘I thought you might love some homegrown things from my garden’. Franca searched my face and said ‘And now you must go and rest before your evening engagement’ and gently but firmly dismissed me.
As I walked ‘home from school’, I giggled out loud enjoying the autumn sunshine and feeling how much I live for absurd, random things happening in my life. My stereotypes of Germany’s ultra orderly, sombre façade were breaking off and falling in beautiful colourful pieces around my feet. I felt joy and love.
Coventry Association for International Friendship 