September 12th Session - Flash Fiction with Jeff Phelps

In September we were pleased to welcome Jeff Phelps as our guest facilitator, to run a session on Flash Fiction  on the theme of ‘Identity.’ The aim was to give our members and guests a varied interpretation of the theme – which is central to our anthology project – and ensure that poetry and prose writers were catered to alike.

Jeff first challenged us to categorise our identity. What kind of things makes up someone’s identity? Between us we came up with:

Race, Class, Ethnicity, Nationality, Gender, Culture, Education, Physical Presence, Family, Religion and Abilities, and agreed there were many more things which makes up someone’s identity.

Dictionary definitions suggest identity is ‘the distinguishing character or personality of an individual’, or ‘the condition of being a specified person’.

Of course, writing fiction using something as personal as our identity is difficult. To link our identity to writing flash fiction, we had 15 mins writing about a family ‘ritual’. This gave us a good outside perspective on personal events, as well as giving us practice writing in a smaller number of words than we  might be used to.

We had some great examples of how families celebrated together and how people interpreted events outside of their culture, as well as insight into different superstitions. Some good starting points indeed.

Jeff gave us a Tess Gallagher quote - “Tell me something I can’t forget” - to bear in mind as we read The Long Wet Grass by Seamus Scanlon, which was a competition winner in Fish Magazine in Ireland. Certainly a story to give you chills.

We had a look through some guidelines for writing Flash Fiction, which Jeff had compiled. We had a look at some examples which didn’t quite keep to them, to see why they weren’t as effective. We analysed a piece which didn’t have a satisfactory conclusion, and which had too much unnecessary detail in the story. A quick review of the guidelines and we were ready for our second exercise.

Jeff asked us to consider a time when we first realised that we had an identity. That is, when we realised that we were different from others, that we were female, or male, or rich, or poor, or English, or Indian, or any of the composites of identity which we discussed at the very beginning. This can be difficult – not just because we may have trouble recalling the memories, but because a lot of the examples that people gave were times when their identity had been used against them.  

Food for thought about how our identities define us – not only to ourselves, but in the eyes of others. With no time left, Jeff gave us a list of prompts to help get the creative juices flowing after the workshop and we rounded off the session.

Thank you Jeff for an inspiring lesson!

You can find all of the material for this session in a separate post here.  

September 12th Session - Materials

The Long Wet Grass

Seamus Scanlon

 

The resonance of tires against the wet road is a mantra, strong and steady. The wipers slough rain away in slow rhythmic arcs into the surrounding blackness. The rain falls slow and steady, then gusting, reminding me of Galway when I was a child where Atlantic winds flung broken fronds of seaweed onto the Prom during high tide. Before the death harmony of Belfast seduced me.

The wind keeps trying to tailgate us. But we keep sailing. The slick black asphalt sings on beneath us. We slow and turn onto a dirt road, the clean rhythm now broken, high beams tracing tall reeds edging against the road, moving rhythmically back and forth with the wind.

No lights now from oncoming cars.

We stop at a clearing. I open the door, the driver looks back at me. The rain on my face is soothing. The pungent petrol fumes comfort me. The moon lies hidden behind black heavy clouds. I unlock the trunk.

You can barely stand after lying curled up for hours. After a while you can stand straight. I take the tape from your mouth. You breathe in the fresh air. You breathe in the fumes. You watch me. You don’t beg. You don’t cry. You are brave.

I hold your arm and lead you away from the roadway, into a field, away from the car, from the others. The gun in my hand pointed at the ground. I stop. I kiss your cheek. I raise the gun. I shoot you twice in the temple. The coronas of light anoint you. You fall. The rain rushes to wipe the blood off. I fire shots into the air. The ejected shells skip away.

I walk back to the car and leave you lying there in the long wet grass.  

 

Another example of an effective flash fiction:

 

At night Malcolm liked to visit the houses of old adversaries without them knowing. He never took anything, but usually left little clues. Enough to make them think someone might have been there. Enough to make them feel uneasy. He would leave  a radio playing very low, eat some cornflakes, or move the furniture.

Now he sat in darkness in a leather armchair that he had once owned, and lit a cigarette. He knew, without being able to see, where everything was in the room – the photographs of the children, the silent television, the glowering bookcase.   

This was the most rewarding of all houses to frequent. Malcolm stabbed the cigarette out in a conspicuous ashtray as the clock struck two in the dining room. Above him Alice, his ex-wife, stirred and mumbled in her sleep.

Later, he thought, he would sit by her bed and watch.

 

Some flash fiction guidelines

·         Keep it simple. 500 words is not much. Treat it as a challenge.

·         Be authentic and honest. It will show.

·         So write quite quickly – then go back and edit as if you’re reading it for the first time.

·         Don’t try and write a novel in condensed form.

·         Concentrate on writing one (or maybe two) good scenes with telling detail.

·         Don’t include so many characters that it becomes confusing. Remember you are introducing the reader to new people. Writing in the first person (I) is OK and often a good way to get inside the narrator’s head quickly. You can always change it later.

·         The rules about showing not telling, using your senses and so on are even more important here in this condensed form. Avoid summarising scenes and characters.

·         Endings – don’t obsess about a surprise or ‘meaningful’ ending. Trust that a suitable ending will make itself known in time. You might have to wait.

·         Shape – a ‘circular’  story, with a reference at the end to something at the beginning, can give a sense of completion. An ‘open-ended’ story can give a sense of intrigue and more to come.

·         Edit seriously. There is real strength in brevity.

·         Avoid – being confusing, being too clever, anecdotes with no purpose.

·         Read examples and think about which ones work and why. There are plenty on the web and in short story/flash fiction collections.

Some flash fiction prompts about identity:

These are prompts only. Feel free to adapt them in any way that works for you and to follow them into new places.

 

Imagine you lost your memory. Which of your possessions would your friends and relatives use to identify you? A watch? Pair of socks? Item of jewellery? A phone? etc Write a letter from the relative or friend to you explaining where it came from and explaining its important as part of your identity. Dear Jane, you might not recognise this gold watch, but…..

 

Write a story that begins when the protagonist is pulled out of a queue at an airport and is told that his/her passport is a forgery. What happens next? How could they prove who they really are?

 

Write a fantasy story in which you meet your double. They have the same name as you and the same history. What happens? Describe the person you met. What impression do they give? Perhaps they are ahead of you in time – or behind in the progress of their life. What warnings or advice would be given?

 

At a train station a mischievous woman poses as the children’s nanny that Mrs Dawkins had been expecting. Write what happens when the fake nanny gets to Mrs Dawkins’s house.

 

Write a scene in which a very wealthy man poses as homeless and looks for opportunities to help people.

 

A weary man approaches a house looking for some relief, but he’s greeted like he’s the returning owner.

 

A family with no children adopts an abandoned baby. What happens next?

 

Start a fable, like Toy Story, in which one or more of the toys rebels against the label it’s given – a doll wants to be a different colour or be played with by a boy, the soldier wants to be a ballerina. Make it lighthearted, but try and make it a metaphor for the labels/identities we give each other.

 

John is a very overweight young man who doesn’t feel accepted by his family or friends. When he goes away to college he follows a strict diet and loses five stone. Describe what happens when he returns home for a visit.

 

There are two doors into the place where I work. One is marked ‘average’ and one marked ‘beautiful’. Each day, we choose which door we use. Today, for the first time, I used the ‘beautiful’ door. Go on to describe what happened.

 

 

Thanks to Jeff Phelps for compiling these wonderful materials for our writing session on flash fiction.

August 8th Session - Showing Identity Through Poetry

In August, Roma ran the session on how to portray our identity through poetry, as part of our anthology project, which is all about the theme of ‘Identity.’

 

We looked at some of the ways poets use poetic techniques to demonstrate their identities.

 

·         Language & form – traditional forms or writing in dialect

·         Relationships – writing about how the poet interacts with people

·         Things you love – what’s important to the poet

·         Values and traditions – what rituals define their culture, family or self?

·         Important memories – key moments in the poet’s life

·         Fears – a look at vulnerability

·         Accomplishments, hopes  or wishes – who or what the poet aspires to be

·         Home – the poet’s place – physical or mental

 

We looked at an example of a poem which uses some of these techniques. Early In The Morning by Li-Young Lee describes a memory of a family ritual and explores the relationships between the poet’s mother and father.

 

Exercise 1: Think of a person in your childhood. It could be your parent, childhood best friend, school enemy. Write a short poem about that person, exploring what you most remember about them. Try to write concrete images. Explore what you feel towards them.

 

Next we looked at a poem called Jade Mountain Peak by Marjorie Evasco. It describes a place (which may be familiar or unfamiliar), and the poet learning and growing in that place.

 

Exercise 2: Write a poem that starts with your journey to an unfamiliar place. Where are you? What can you see? Try to include concrete images, and use your ‘zoom in lens’ to spot small images. What do you discover about yourself?

Anthology Update - September 12th Workshop

We have another great opportunity for non-members to join us for a workshop on September 12th. Our workshop will be led by Shropshire writer Jeff Phelps, and will be all about how to write Flash Fiction (prose <500 words), with an emphasis on 'identity' - the theme of our anthology!

Check out the details below, and get in contact if you or anybody you know would be interested in coming along!

July 11th Session - 'My Place' with SImon Fletcher

For our July session we were very pleased to welcome Simon Fletcher, a local poet and publisher, to head up a workshop on the theme of ‘My Place.’ We also opened up the workshop to non-members of the group so we had a couple of visitors with us for the session.

Simon led a discussion on our individual ideas of ‘My Place’, and we discovered that different people interpreted the concept in different ways, from a house, a home, a country, heritage, community or even a role. We each feel in our ‘place’ in a variety of locations and situations – and sometimes it’s the culmination of everything that’s come before which creates your own ‘place.’

Then we looked at some different writers’ ideas on the theme of ‘place’, including an excerpt from Meera Syal’s Anita and Me, where she considers her mother’s Punjabi upbringing, and part of a Gabriel Okara poem, Piano and Drums, in which the poet reminisces on his homeland of Nigeria.

Our first writing exercise was to make notes on somewhere we could call our ‘special place.’ It was interesting to hear how people felt about certain locations, houses or places they’d visited. We had descriptions of places all over the world, from right on our doorstep in Wolverhampton, to Africa and Asia.

Then we expanded on this by describing the place in detail.  There were some very good preliminary pieces emerging from this second exercise. Some people stuck with the same place, and some people changed their places. After all, we’re not confined to being connected to only one place! We had some great ideas which also encapsulated more abstract ideas of ‘My Place’. Hearing the stories about places people felt close to gave the writing much more depth. It will be very exciting to read the pieces when they are tidied up!

We’d like to thank Simon for leading such an inspiring workshop – it certainly gave us a lot to think about in terms of writing about ‘My Place’!

‘My Place’ is a key part of your identity…which you might remember is the theme for our anthology! Don’t forget, you can submit your works – including any written in Simon’s workshop – to be considered for the anthology, as per the guidelines, which can be found here.

Call for submission to our anthology!

Our anthology project is now live, supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, and we would like to officially invite our members to begin submitting their work to us for consideration for our anthology. We have some important guidelines to run past you first, so please make sure you read the below to brush up on what the project is all about.

 

1) Please submit work on the theme of 'Identity.' You can interpret this as broadly as you like, but it may include pieces on your community, your history, your childhood memories or anything else that's all about who YOU are.

 

2) Please submit no more than four pieces of unpublished work. We really want to showcase everybody in the group so please be considerate to your fellow writers by submitting up to four pieces of work each.

 

3) Each piece can be up to 25 lines of poetry or up to 500 words of prose. Again, we need to make sure we fit everybody in to the anthology, so please keep your submissions within these lengths.

 

4) We are accepting submissions from our regular group members, as well as non-members who attend our workshops. We want to represent the talents of Blakenhall Writers, but anybody who attends one of our sessions by invitation is welcome to submit.

 

5) You have until 30th September 2015 to send us your work. You don't have to send everything at once - you can send in your pieces at any point up until that date. We have some more Identity-themed workshops lined up, including another guest facilitator in September, so make the most of the time to really clean up your pieces.

 

6) Please make sure you proof-read and spell-check your work before submitting. Although we will let you know if we find any errors in your work, it will make the editing process a lot smoother if you make those final checks on your work before submitting.

 

7) Please send your submissions to blakenhallwriters@gmail.com with 'Submission' in the subject box. Alternatively, you may hand in printed copies to Roma, Kuli or Cherry at our August or September meetings.

 

8) We will be undertaking a feedback process during editing. We want this anthology to help us all develop our writing, so Roma, Kuli & Cherry have received training in best practice for editing an anthology. Therefore we may offer suggestions for improvement on your pieces, or open them up to feedback from the group, in line with our training. Please bear this in mind when submitting.

 

9) There will be a chance to perform your work which is accepted for the anthology. Should you want to, you will have chance to showcase your work at our launch events in early 2016.

 

10) You will receive two free copies of the anthology. Members of Blakenhall Writers, as well as non-members who have a piece included in the anthology, will receive two free copies of the anthology.

 

If you have any questions let us know. We look forward to reading your pieces!

Roma, Cherry & Kuli

Anthology Update - July 11th Workshop

We have an exciting opportunity for members of the public to join us for our July session. Shopshire-based poet and publisher Simon Fletcher will be running a workshop on the theme of 'My Place', which will encompass home, location and self, which sits nicely with the the theme of our anthology - 'identity'.

We will be welcoming submissions to the anthology from non-members off the back of this workshop, so if you or anyone you know fancies coming along, please get in touch on blakenhallwriters@gmail.com as spaces are limited!

The workshop will be held on Saturday 11th July between 11:00 and 13:00 in room 5 of The Old School, Dudley Rd, WV2 3BY. It would be lovely to see you!

Our member Kuli Kohli featured on Leavener's Poet's Corner and Disability Arts Online!

Our member Kuli Kohli was selected as the May poet of the month on Leaveners' new Poet's Corner. She had the privilege of being the first guest poet, and now that the month is over, we wanted to share all her work which was displayed on the site throughout the month, and the lovely illustrations which accompanied them. Read her work here, and more about Leaveners here.

Kuli's story and a selection of her poetry have also been featured on Disability Arts Online, a site which showcases and encourages the expression of disability through creativity.

Well done Kuli, what a great chance to showcase your work!

Offa's Press 'The Poetry of Staffordshire'

Offa's Press, a Shropshire-based publisher who we at Blakenhall have worked with frequently in the past (the Manager, Simon Fletcher, used to run our group!), are compiling an anthology containing poetry written about the country of Stafforshire.

Following on from their successful 2013 anthology 'The Poetry of Shropshire', Offa's Press are inviting submissions between 15th June and 15th August of poetry relating to places, people and the history os Staffordshire.

If you'd like to submit some poetry for consideration, here are some inspirational things from Staffordshire to get your creative juices flowing:

- Cannock Chase

- Stoke Potteries

- The Peak District

- Staffordhire Bull Terriers

- Staffordshire Oat Cakes

- Litchfield Cathedral

- Stafford Castle

- Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal

- Shugborough House & Estate

- National Memorial Arboretum

- Josiah Wedgwood

Why not visit the lovely county of Staffordshire to see what it's all about?

Further submission details can be found on the Offa's Press website. Good luck with all your submissions!

June 13th Session - Settings

Settings are important for all writing. Whatever your piece is about, and whether you're writing poetry, prose or plays, it's got to be set somewhere. The way you create settings in your piece has a big impact on your audience. If you do it right, you can set the mood for your piece and create tension, drama and emotion. If you do it wrong, well, the audience will struggle to follow your piece.

We held a workshop on how to describe settings at our June session. Firstly, we had to source some settings to write about. Some of us went out and about into the local area to take photos of things of interest. Where we meet at Blakenhall Community and Healthy Living Centre, we are in some interesting surrounds, such as a Sikh temple, an empty church, some abandoned industrial buildings and a park. Some of us looked through books to find pictures of settings which inspired us.

We had a think about what a 'setting' actually is. It's where a story takes place isn't it? It's a bit more than that. A setting can encompass the 'where' but also the 'what' and 'when.'  

Where? - Country, town, street, house?

What? - A room, a car, a tree?   

When? - Era (current day, historical, future), season/weather, time of day?  

We wrote a few lines on our settings - just what we could see at first glance. But creating a setting is much more than just what you can see. We did an exercise where we imagined that we had been kidnapped, blindfolded, and left in a room. How would you describe that room to someone, when you couldn't see anything? You have to use the other 4 senses:

What can you hear? - Noises can give a lot away. Can you hear traffic, voices or footsteps? Or can you hear birdsong or running water?

What can you smell? - Are there any distinctive smells which remind you of a specific place? Food cooking, greenery, chemicals?

What can you taste? - Are any of the smells so strong you can actually taste them? Are you eating? 

What can you feel?  - Is the surface hard or soft? Is it warm or cold? Are you outside or inside? 

Using all five senses to describe a setting really immerses the reader in the situation. It can make them imagine it very vividly!

Those of us who have all five of our senses tend to notice the things we can see first of all. But do we look past the details and see the overall? Do we see the blue sky and green hills instead of the birds flying and the flowers blooming? Our next exercise was to take our original setting and 'zoom in' until we could see the tiniest details (or imagined we could!) Then we wrote about those. 

It can be easy to think that everyone is familiar with the settings we're describing - or forget that some people won't be. Our last exercise was to imagine a setting we were familiar with - somewhere we go very frequently. Then we imagined taking someone there who'd never been there before. What would they notice about the place?

 So describing settings can be beneficial for your writing as it gives the reader lots of information about where and when your writing takes place. But what we learned is that you have to be careful about how to incorporate them into your writing - you need to ensure your audience can understand the setting through describing it effectively. You also need to incorporate all five senses into the description to heighten the impact of the setting. I think we're all a bit more confident in writing about settings now - I hope you are too.  

April & May Sessions - The Importance of Feedback

During April and May we ran our annual 'Feedback Sessions'. We trialled it last year and it seemed to be very useful for our members so we decided to give it another go. We asked our members to forward some poems or prose which they felt they needed another opinion on. We then distributed these to the rest of the group and allowed a month to read through, reflect, and think of some constructive comments for each piece. Then, when we met up, we gave this feedback in person. We spread this over two months to try and encompass anyone who could only attend either one of the sessions.

We feel that feedback is invaluable to our members in their aims to improve their work. It's always useful to have a second pair of eyes look over your work. It can have many benefits:

- Others may pick up on little mistakes you've overlooked, e.g. spelling/grammar, a misused word, a missing rhyme etc.

- Readers can let you know whether they feel that your work is 'accessible.' That means whether they can understand and follow your work. Some people think that 'good' writing means using lots of long words, but not everyone will understand these. Most people want to write for an audience - they want other people to enjoy their work. If your audience can't understand your work, they won't enjoy it, so it's worth listening to what they have to say!

- Your audience may interpret your work in a different way to how you intended. Because you have written the words with the 'message' of the piece in your head, you can't accurately assess whether it gives an audience enough information to get the point of the piece. e.g. If you have written a murder mystery, you will already know who the killer is while writing. But have you made it too obvious or too obscure who the killer is in the story? Your audience can tell you.  

- Some people who might have more experience in writing might give you feedback to technically improve your work. This could be publishers/mentors/editors etc. They know what kind of work is likely to get published, so if you want to become published, they could have some valuable tips for making your writing flow well. They've got to where they are by learning and taking on feedback, so they're looking to impart their knowledge on you.

As you can see, feedback can be a real chance to learn something about an individual piece of work, or your writing in general. But what if different people give you conflicting feedback? What if you don't agree with their feedback? 

Well, the bottom line is that you are the only one who can make decisions on your work. Feedback is nothing more than suggestions, although some of it can be suggestions backed by experience and good practice. You have to consider every piece of feedback and think "will this benefit my work and take it in the direction I want it to go?" It's up to you to make that assessment. It's your work and your responsibility - you don't have to change anything you don't want to. 

So we know feedback is important, but what if someone asks you to give feedback? Will they think you're being mean about their work? Where do you start?

Well, at Blakenhall Writers we have an understanding and sympathetic method of giving feedback. We make sure our members know that we are not criticising an individual when giving feedback, but merely suggesting how their work could be improved, in our opinion. From there on, as we said above, it's up to the member to decide whether or not to edit their work based on feedback received.

If someone requests that you give them feedback, make sure you have an understanding in place with them that they are willing to receive 'constructive criticism', or even offer some work of your own if you can, for them to review in return. Most of the time if you are approached to give feedback, the person will understand the importance of feedback, but some people will just want to be told how good their work is, so set the ground rules beforehand to make sure you don't ruffle any feathers ;)

You might not have had to think critically about a piece of writing before. It's not just about what could be improved in the piece, but also what works well, and what the writer's strengths are. Don't forget you can read through a piece as many times as it takes to form your opinions on it. Here are some tips to keep in mind when reading through work.

- What is the first think that strikes you about the piece/what is the most memorable part? It might be that one thing doesn't strike you, so give it a read through, and then in ten minutes or so, think back to what you remember about the piece. Was there a stunning image, and fun ending, a surprise?

- What did you enjoy about the piece? Which parts flowed well, and were enjoyable?

- Were there any parts which felt awkward or out of place? Can you figure out why they felt awkward in the piece?

- Can you pick out any writing techniques the author has employed, and do they work well in the piece? e.g. rhymes, alliteration, metaphor. These can add real colour to a piece, but sometimes they aren't effective.

- Did you understand what the piece was about? This is the mark of whether a piece is written effectively or not. 

Hopefully feedback seems a lot less daunting now. It's a really useful tool for writers to learn from and interact with each other, and shouldn't be discounted, regardless of whether you agree with a person's opinions or not. Enjoy sharing your work with others to find out what they think of it. :)  

March 14th Session - Shakespearean Sonnets

We got together in March for another session dedicated to writing, as we have two feedback sessions coming up in April & May, which will have more focus on discussion of our work than actually creating it.

We looked at an old style of poetry - Shakespearean sonnets. A sonnet is an Italian form of poetry which has a 'song-like' quality. They are usually written about love, but different writers have put their own spin on them over hundreds of years, including Shakespeare, who popularised this type by writing a great many of them! 

There are 3 ‘golden rules’ which govern how Shakespearean sonnets are written.

1.       14 lines long. The sonnets are split into 3 groups of 4 lines (quatrains) and finished off with a couplet (2 lines) to make 14 lines in total. This is the most long-standing rule, and one that modern poets still stick to, even if they put their own spin on some of the other traditions.

2.       Strict rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme for Shakespearean sonnets is:

a,b,a,b,c,d,c,d,e,f,e,f,g,g

Every time a letter is the same, those lines rhyme, so the 1^st/3^rd lines rhyme, the 2^nd/4^th rhyme, the 5^th/7^th rhyme and so on, until the last two which rhyme with each other.

3.       Iambic pentameter. “What?!” This is the meter of the poem, which means the beats per line and stresses of the words. There are typically 10 syllables per line, with the accent on every other beat. This line from one of Shakespeare’s sonnets is a good example:

So now I have confessed that he is thine

This gave us really good practice writing in form. Many of us are used to writing poetry in free verse, and some of us don’t really dabble in poetry, so it was a challenge to learn about the strict rules involved in writing Shakespearean sonnets. We feel it is beneficial within the group to learn about traditional forms and styles of poetry for two reasons – it pushes your boundaries as a writer when you learn new techniques, and it demonstrates an understanding of where your art has come from and how it developed. Both of these can open new doors in terms of both inspiration and bringing variety to your portfolio.

There are other types of sonnet too – Petrarchan, for example, which has a different rhyme scheme. Many modern poets play around with the structure and just write a 14-line poem influenced by traditional sonnets. However, they wouldn’t be able to do this unless they had spent some time learning about sonnets.

Why not look up some traditional and modern sonnets and see what they’re like? Then you could try writing one using these golden rules, and then with your own spin.

A great place to start is the Cannon Poets website, as they run a yearly competition – ‘Sonnet or Not’ – which accepts entries of any 14-line poem. You can read past winners here.

Here’s another website collating a really good selection of traditional and modern sonnets. Take a look!

Offa's Press Winter Workshop

On 31^st January, two of our members, Cherry and Kuli, attended a workshop run by local publisher Offa’s Press. We headed off to Pant, a village near Oswestry in Shropshire, in time to start the workshop at 10:30. Luckily, although we’d had some snow and ice in the few days beforehand, the morning shaped up to be mild and sunny.

We started the day with a workshop in Pant village hall, where we discussed poetry on the theme of winter by Western poets. The favourite of the day was Snow Joke by Simon Armitage, which is a ‘gossip’-style poem about a man who ignores police warnings and drives across the Yorkshire moors in the snow, only to become trapped in his car in a snow drift.

They all certainly gave us something to think about when examining how to represent the season in words.  For a completely different flavour, we moved on to the next part of the workshop where we looked at tanka, a traditional Japanese form.

Tanka are 5 lines long, have a juxtaposition of images (usually one from the poet’s surroundings and one about the poet themselves), and use a ‘pivot line’ between the first two and last two lines, which means the poem could be reversed and still make sense.  

We practiced writing tanka about winter to get us accustomed to the form. We had to draw on our experiences of winter, either recently or winters past we could remember.

We broke briefly for lunch to get our strength up for the walk. We went a similar route to last time we were there – through the limestone quarry over Llanymymech Rocks – all the while taking in the winter surroundings. There was plenty to be inspired by, from the gorgeous view at the top, to the snowdrops just coming through.

Although we had to leave at 2pm, the day continued with a further workshop in the afternoon, to work on poems inspired by the walk.

Once again, Offa’s Press delivered a first class personal learning experience, and both our members are keen to go back for the next poetry day, to be arranged for later in the year. You can see our girls’ work on the Offa’s Press website here, alongside other poems from the day.
 

Our girls on the walk around Llanymynech Rocks



Wild Bytes Café and the Black Country Writers Project

Recently, we learned that local community group Our Own Future have launched a project to promote local writers and give them a platform to share their work with a wider audience. Black Country Writers Project is accepting submissions of poetry and prose to display in Wild Bytes Café in Darlington St, Wolverhampton, for customers to enjoy while relaxing at the café.  

Three of our members - Roma, Kuli and Cherry – submitted some work which was accepted to be displayed at the café. Subsequently, they were invited to perform their work at the launch event for the project, which was held on the same day as the official launch of Wild Bytes Café.

On 14^th Feb, after the Blakenhall Writers session, they went along to share work on the theme of ‘love’ – very appropriate for the date! They read their work alongside two esteemed local poets - Jane Seabourne and Emma Purshouse - who had also submitted work to the project. Some of the audience had brought their work along too and joined in with the reading, while our member Amarjit came along to support. 

The café was busy and bustling, and the audience were enthusiastic about the work which was shared. It was a lovely environment and all three of our members enjoyed sharing their work and seeing their work on display.  

The project is ongoing, so if you have some work you want to share to help take your writing to the next level, why not check out their requirements and submit to ourownfuture@gmail.com?

You can read more about the launch event on Our Own Future's blog, where you can see our members performing.

February 14th Session - getting ready for our anthology!

Nobody can escape it – the year of the Blakenhall Writers Anthology is here! We want to take every opportunity to give our members the chance to create some really compelling content ready to submit to the anthology, so we are tailoring our sessions to the theme of our identity, and our local community.

For February’s session, we decided to respond to the group’s request for further work on character development and dialogue. We gave it a local twist by using some old photos of residents of Wolverhampton from the past. There were schoolchildren, factory workers, and even the head of the workhouse, who were just waiting for us to give them a Blakenhall makeover.

First, we did a bit of work to turn these pictures into characters.  We tried to answer some questions about the characters, including ‘what do they like to do on a Saturday?’ ‘Describe the most important person in their life’ and ‘What is it like where they live?’

This exercise meant we could really get inside the character’s head, as well as giving us some good ammunition for writing a short story. But now we had some ideas brewing, we had to give our characters a voice.

We learned that dialogue has a purpose in a story; to show the relationship between characters, to move the story on, or to build tension. It’s important that this is effective, or your work will not be believable.

We explored some dialogue techniques, including the importance of the word ‘said.’ Did you know, that if you try to use lots of different words to describe how your character is feeling, you lose the impact of the words? Using ‘said’ is a sure-fire way to maintain a neutral playing field and let the words themselves do the talking (so to speak!)

Then we tied it all together by writing a scene for a story in which the character we built in the first exercise was speaking to another character, to practice the techniques we’d just discussed. You can find some good tips here.

I hope this has given everyone a starting point for a story they might like to submit for our anthology! Try to work on your piece for next month’s meeting and bring it along for some feedback.

Don’t forget, you need to submit some work for our feedback session to the Blakenhall Writers email address by the date of our next meeting (March 14^th). Please send up to 3 poems or up to 400 words of prose that you would like some constructive comments on. We will distribute them to the whole group to review, and bring our comments in to the April session.

January 10th Session & January Writing Task - with the fabulous Roz Goddard and Poetry on Loan!

Well we truly started 2015 with a bang! We had the pleasure of welcoming former Birmingham Laureate Roz Goddard to our group to lead us in exercises on writing poetry from prompts.

We were lucky enough to welcome some new faces, as well as familiar faces from other writing groups, and our group friend Jane Seabourne - who had masterminded the session in conjunction with Poetry on Loan -  joined us too.

Roz started with a little game to introduce everyone in the room. She had laid out a variety of objects on the table, including playing cards, a mobile phone, a necklace, a shaving brush and various other items. We each had to choose an object which we connected with in some way and describe our connection with it, so we learned a little something about everyone around the table.

We first of all loosened up our writing minds with a bit of freewriting – or, ‘hotpenning’ – where the writer does a stream of consciousness exercise without considering grammar or other editing. Roz gave us the starting phrase: ‘It always happens. I can feel my heart racing…’ and we continued writing non-stop for 5 minutes.

Once we were nice and limber, Roz asked us to do a visualisation exercise. We chose an object - either from the table or another one we had thought of that we wanted to write about – and we all closed our eyes as Roz talked us through a surreal scenario where we buried the object in the ground! She promised we would pick this up again later in the session but we moved on to another exercise.

Roz had brought with her a selection of postcards which she distributed around the table for us to look at. We picked ones we were drawn to, and then answered a series of questions about the pictures, such as ‘What time of day is it in the picture?’ and ‘What is happening out of shot?’. As we brought all of these answers together, a poem started to form! We had a bit of time to work on them and read them aloud to the group. There were lots of great interpretations of the prompts, and lots of potential for some strong poems.

Then we returned to our buried items from earlier in the day. We did another visualisation where Roz talked us through returning to the place where we had buried our items a year on, to find that a tree had grown from our items! We had to imagine what a tree which had sprouted from an inanimate object would look like, and write about it. This exercise we took away with us to finish over the month and share it at February’s meeting.

These exercises really helped us to understand how we, as writers, can be inspired from everyday objects, and gave us a great kick-start to the year’s activities. It was lovely to meet Roz, who was an excellent teacher, and to reinvigorate our creative juices with some new writing exercises. Many thanks to Roz, Jane Seabourne and Poetry on Loan for enabling Blakenhall Writers to host such a useful session.

January Writing Task

If you want to join in the task this month, imagine a tree which has grown from an inanimate object, and share your thoughts with us in February! You can pick any object you like.

December 13th Session & December Writing Task

December marked our last session of the year, when we traditionally have a ‘reading session’, and discuss a book we’ve read that year. We brought in some food and had a great time talking about our reading lists. Here are the books the group brought in and our thoughts on them:

Cherry - Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

 

An ageing writer becomes obsessed with his 12-year-old stepdaughter, who he calls Lolita. This controversial book is beautifully written, although the language can be quite complex at points. It has an unreliable narrator and plot twists.

Roma - The Shock of The Fall by Nathan Filer 

A teenager called Matthew suffers from a mental illness following the loss of his brother. This award-winning novel was well-researched and the narration demonstrates Matthew’s skewed vision of the world.

Richard - The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

A man charts his life and relationships and reflects on the effects of a suicide. This Man Booker Prize-winning novel makes you want to read the story over again. It is written well and even people who don’t usually read will enjoy it.  

Kuli - The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde

This story introduces children to important life lessons using the selfless actions of a swallow and a statue he meets on his travels. It is a poignant and emotional story which can be enjoyed by all ages.

Nirmal - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K Rowling/ Luis Suarez biography  

The schoolboy wizard continues his adventures in the second instalment of the series, battling a giant serpent in the chamber of secrets. / An insight into Suarez’s most notorious moment on the field, and the events in his life which led up to it. A thought-provoking biography which elicits empathy.

Anne - When God was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman

The story of a young woman growing up, and the relationships she forms along the way, particularly with her brother and best friend. Award-winning and well recommended, the storyline is more ‘woven’ than linear, which adds a nice complexity to the story.

Des – Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer

Teen vampire romance novels, detailing the burgeoning relationship between a human girl and her undead lover. Recommended for lovers of romance and horror, these books are easy reading.                                                    

Michael - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 

These well-known thrillers featuring England’s most famous detective are well-written and exciting. They created many of the standards for modern detective stories and there are many interesting tales behind the writing. They have been adapted and modernised many times, but the original stories stand the test of time despite their age.  

It was very interesting to see what people had been reading during the year, and we have a lot of new recommendations for our reading lists.

December Writing Task

We did a small exercise to take away and use for our writing task. We took a piece of paper and wrote down a potential novel title. Then we swapped pieces of paper so nobody ended up with their own. The idea is to use the novel title to inspire a poem/short piece of writing. When we reconvene, we will compare the original idea behind the title and the interpretation by the recipient.

Don’t forget that next month we will be joined by Poetry on Loan’s Roz Goddard, who will be leading our session for us on poetry! Look forward to seeing you all there!