After three years as inaugural canal laureate, Jo Bell is giving up the role – and will be saying goodbye with a special event at the Canal Cafe theatre, at Little Venice in London, on Wednesday 2 September at 7.30pm. In an interview with Write Out Loud in 2013 Jo talked of the canals as “the village I belong to, the tribe I live amongst. I love them like a hometown – with great familiarity, and a respect for the less picturesque as well as the bucolic. I enjoy the industrial architecture of, for instance, Stoke-on-Trent where the bottle kilns of the Potteries are still intact along the canal banks, or the old warehouses in Birmingham and Manchester. But the places where the landscape drops away from the canal aqueduct at Pontcysyllte, or the total darkness of the Harecastle tunnel, are magical too.”

In the same interview she added: “I have been all over the place from Gargrave in Yorkshire, to Bristol floating harbour, and most points in between. Every waterway has its own character but really it’s a single system of connected links, rather than a collection of discrete places, so I see it as all part of the same great network. Every day brings its poetry – probably the most memorable moment was taking my boat under the great Severn Bridge as we travelled from Bristol towards Gloucester. But there are small pleasures too – this morning I opened my blinds to see a kingfisher flash past the window.”

In her role as canal laureate she has appeared on TV programmes such as Channel 4’s Great Canal Journeys with Timothy West and Prunella Scales. Her poetry collection, Kith, published by Nine Arches Press earlier this year, contains a number of poems about the canals, including ‘Lifted’, which concludes with these lines: “Ask of water; help me rise, // and water says: I will.”

Lifted – Poems and Songs of the Waterways is presented by the Poetry Society in association with the Canal & River Trust, and also features Dead Rat Orchestra. Little Venice is where the Regent’s Canal meets the Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal. It is home to many boats, including a floating art gallery, puppet theatre and café.

Despite giving up her role as canal laureate, Jo will continue to live on her narrowboat, on the waterways. She said: “Come and wave me off as they push me down the gangplank.” 

PHOTOGRAPH: LEE ALLEN PHOTOGRAPHY