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



April 12th Session & April Writing Task

This month we welcomed Jack Edwards, our guest speaker, who ran a session on Japanese short forms of poetry.

We started by learning about Haiku and how traditionally in English, they’re considered to be written in 3 lines, with 5 syllables in the first, 7 in the second and 5 in the third.

My storehouse burned down - (5)

now nothing stands between me (7)

and the moon above. (5)

Mizuata Masahide

We tried writing a Haiku in this format, which was unusual for people who were used to writing prose or long poems! Then we learned from Jack that the syllable count doesn’t matter too much, and what’s more important in Haiku is capturing a moment.  

Spring rain –

under trees

a crystal stream.

Basho

For a writing exercise, each of us picked a photo. Some people had a lake, a beach, or a city. We then wrote a Haiku for each season, based in the location shown in the photo. It really got us thinking! Having four Haiku meant we could link them into one longer poem.

After this, Jack got us all to write a Haiku about somewhere or something in Wolverhampton. He split us into groups and we linked all our Haiku together to make a poem which flowed. This is an example of Renga, which was a collaborative form of poetry used by the ancient Japanese. One person would start with a Haiku, and others would contribute verses to add onto the end, creating a long story.

Once we were all comfortable with Haiku, Jack taught us how to extend our Haiku into a Tanka, by adding two lines on the end which reflected on the initial 3 lines.

It was a very interesting session, and something very different to usual. It’s always enjoyable to learn new techniques, and we thank Jack for joining us.

April Writing Task

This month, our task is to write a Haiku based on something which happens during the month. We will share these at the next meeting.