The anthology of poems and pictures based on the Year Abroad project by Tara Williams, sponsored by a Lidl GB award from the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages. Download the eBook as two-on-one pdf or read it on Google Books.

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Tara Williams writes: This anthology, comprising of ten poems with accompanying illustrations, was made possible thanks to the support of the LIDL Year Abroad Project Prize, for which I am very grateful.

Upon receiving notification of my successful application for funding in the summer of 2024, I began work on the project as my year abroad entered its final weeks. From my base in the beautiful medieval town of Bamberg, Germany, I found inspiration from two sources: all that I had experienced over the past year spent abroad, and the literary works of E.T.A. Hoffmann. Having lived in Bamberg in the early stages of his career between the years of 1808 and 1813, Hoffmann’s connection to Bamberg can be seen in the numerous buildings and institutions there which bear his name, and as a result I felt it fitting to draw upon his works as inspiration for my anthology.

I began my work on the project by choosing the works by Hoffmann that would form the basis for my inspiration. Both Der Sandmann (The Sandman) and Der goldne Topf (The Golden Pot) are darkly fantastical in tone, dealing with the inner psychologies of their protagonists and exploring the ambivalent intrigue that can lurk under the surface of the ordinary and extraordinary alike. As one of the sentiments that I wished to capture was the unique form of unease that comes from being left to live alone in another country for the first time, this tone present within Hoffmann’s works particularly appealed to me. On the other hand, Hoffmann’s ability to capture natural beauty also inspired me when creating other poems in the anthology, allowing me to celebrate the many wonderful things I was able to experience during the year. I enjoyed being able to consider the multifaceted nature of my year abroad experience in this way, exploring both the good and the bad that came with it.

With these sources of inspiration in mind, I decided that my anthology was to be divided into two sections, with each section being inspired by one of the aforementioned works by Hoffmann. I also made the decision during these early stages to link each poem of mine to an idea or moment from one of my chosen Hoffmann works, which I later indicated in the title of each of my poems. Once I had made these decisions, I drew up a rough structural plan of the anthology, with the accompanying illustration plans included, as I wanted to achieve a semblance of flow and overarching sentiment throughout the work as a whole. I specifically intended to achieve the sense of the reader embarking on the journey of my year abroad, beginning with initial uncertainty, developing to recognise and celebrate the beauty of Bamberg, and ultimately concluding by reflecting on the experience and the process of having to leave it behind me to return home to England.

I decided to make the writing process a gradual one, writing poems piece by piece as inspiration struck me; I felt that this made the creative process more free-flowing, which helped the project to remain fresh-feeling and organic. The same can be said for my illustrations, especially as these took longer to create than the poems themselves in most instances and consequently needed to be completed over multiple sessions.

I decided to write the majority of the poems in a fairly freely structured style in order to not feel too constrained by literary convention, but did decide to challenge myself by writing in more structured styles (such as haiku and sonnet form) for some of the poems in the second half of the anthology.

Referencing my own photos taken throughout my time in Bamberg, the anthology’s accompanying illustrations are all based around the sights and experiences that I encountered during my year abroad. The intertitle image of a woman’s face in bronze, for example, is of the famous door knocker that can be found in Bamberg’s medieval old town (and which also was said to have inspired Hoffmann’s character of the evil Apfelweibla, or ‘apple-seller’, in Der goldne Topf).

The overall creative process also stretched onwards into the time following my final departure from Bamberg, allowing me to complete the writing stage of the anthology once I had returned to England. This meant that I could reflect further with the power of both hindsight and physical distance; I found this very helpful, especially in regard to some of the poems in the second section of the anthology that deal with the transitory nature of leaving Bamberg for the last time to return to my hometown, and the consequent ending of this significant period of my life.

Finally, upon my return to Oxford in the autumn of 2024, I began to collaborate with Henrike Lähnemann to turn my anthology from a digital document into a physical book ready for publication, completing the finishing touches in early 2025.

I would like to conclude this introduction to my anthology by once again thanking the judging panel who granted me the LIDL Year Abroad Project Prize funding which enabled me to bring this anthology to life. I would like to also extend my thanks to Henrike Lähnemann for all of her help throughout this process.

Tara Williams
Oxford, in January 2025