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



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.

Eugene Morris: January Writing Task by Cherry Doyle

Here is Cherry Doyle’s response to the January Writing Task, where we used a character profile as the basis for a story. It’s the opening of potentially a longer story or novella about Eugene.

A shaft of sunlight forced its way through the gap in the blinds, burning dust and bending through last night’s empty wine glasses. Blonde hair on marble shoulders shimmered like threads of fire under its persistent rays.

Eugene rolled awake in his characteristically silent way, slipping between the covers out of the side of the bed. Dapples on his dark skin caught the light as he tiptoed out of the room, leaving the sleeping blonde to breathe heavily into his satin pillows. He knew she wouldn’t wake – enough wine and a late night would see to that. It was early yet and he wanted to head out for a walk before his daily routine. He dressed quickly and exited, hoping the blonde would wake and leave before his return. Never mind if she didn’t; she could be easily despatched with an excuse and enough psychology to cushion the rebuttal.

Eugene wandered through dipping early seagulls and men in yellow jackets to his favourite spot at the dockyard; behind some rusting red sheds, by a grim patch of water unoccupied by boats. He stared into the grey water, swirling like galaxies in his dark eyes. Images of his mother, so far away now, flooded him. Her scolding Jamaican accent, the way she goaded him for his promiscuity, the ripe mangoes always over-spilling from the glass bowl on the kitchen table. He remembered squeezing their soft flesh as a boy, feeling it move under the leathery skin.

It reminded him of the violence he’d seen in this spot – behind these unused skeleton buildings where no business or shipbuilders dare set foot. Soft skulls exploding under guns barrels, dead weight in and out of car boots, blood running into the water like a river. All the while so helpless to stop. So against his nature - so cruel to stand by and watch a murder.

After 15 years working undercover, he could hide his emotions well, but his inability to interfere was frustrating – he felt like a small cog working towards…who knew?...and he couldn’t tell whether he had any effect. It was this which prompted his early morning walks at the dockyard.   

But he couldn’t back out now – he could be killed, or worse – his family could feel the effects of his career choice. He longed for his mother’s kitchen, and mangoes in the morning sun, fat on a blue gingham tablecloth. But he couldn’t. He hadn’t spoken to her for months. She understood, he knew. She was always supportive of him, because she was so happy that he had chosen a career instead of time behind bars. When he specialised as an undercover agent she was noticeably concerned, but she trusted him and he thanked her for it. But now he just wanted the sweet smell of spices, fruit and tea which was ingrained in the yellow painted wood kitchen.

  

Jan 11th Meeting & Jan Writing Task

We had an interesting session on Saturday 11th on the subject of Crime Fiction, where we learned about the queen of the genre, Agatha Christie, and about different representations of the 'detective' figure in books and on TV. We used this knowledge of the 'detective' archetypes and some guidance on writing Crime Fiction to come up with a character which we're going to use as the basis for this month's homework. Here's our guy:

Name: Eugene Morris
Age: Early 40s
Ethnicity: Mixed Race (Jamaican & English)
Marital Status: Single
Job: Undercover Police Officer
Years of Service: 15 years undercover
Economic situation: Quite well-off
Personality: Self-assured, ladies' man, smart, easily bribed (likes money), doesn't follow the rules.

Background to the story: Eugene has been posted on an undercover job with the mob, but he is actually working for both sides. His loyalties are lying with the mob, where he turns a blind eye to their crimes. One day his police chief calls him to a meeting to tell him that the mob he's working with are suspected of the murder of a young woman and instructs him to find out what he can about the crime. When Eugene finds out the murdered woman is a former lover, his loyalties are tested as he's torn between helping the police solve her murder and working for the mob.

Your challenge is: Write a SHORT story or poem based on this information. You can use as much or little as you like, and add any details of your own. Use the handout provided on Saturday to piece together your story. Bring your story/poem to the next meeting (Sat 8th Feb) so we can see what you've come up with!