Get ready for the launch!

We have spent the last 14 months working on it, and it's finally here - it's nearly time to launch Blakenhall Writers Anthology!

It all started at the end of 2013 when Roma, Kuli and Cherry decided to create an anthology of member's work to showcase the talents of our group, and to get people from the community we sit in involved in writing and showing off their work. With the group's help we settled on a theme of 'identity' to reflect all facets of ourselves, and we were off!

In order to fund this project, an application was made to Arts Council England, who reviewed our case and kindly granted us some money to progress the anthology. This meant the project was run tightly and in accordance with ACE guidance, as we will be reporting back to them on the successes of our anthology.

2014 comprised workshops geared towards creation of content of our anthology - some run by group members, and some run by local writers who provided us with different viewpoints on 'identity', and armed us with different tools to enable us to write varied pieces. We invited guests to attend our workshops too.

Our members (and guests!) beavered away creating pieces which reflected the theme of 'identity'. Roma, Kuli and Cherry shortlisted, edited, proofread and compiled the pieces into the final anthology, as well as working with a local designer in the background to create a stunning cover.

So much hard work has gone into the creation of this booklet, from workshops run by local writers, to busy writers creating stunning pieces, and hours of editing and proofreading. Now we're gearing up to launch in several places.

Our main launch will be held during our March session, on 12th March, 11:00 - 13:00 at the Old School in Blakenhall, Wolverhampton. We will be providing a buffet lunch beforehand, followed by performances from our contributors.

We have also been invited to launch our anthology at City Voices, on 12th April, 19:30 - 21:00 at the Lych Gate Tavern in Wolverhampton city centre. We will be performing alongside other writers on the night (£3 entry).

Some of our members are also attending a poetry reading event at Walsall Arboretum on 13th March, 14:00 - 16:00, where they will be promoting and reading from the anthology.

Please feel free to join us to celebrate the hard work of our contributors. We hope to see you at one or more of these events.

Thank you to everyone who has supported Blakenhall Writers during the creation of this anthology.

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?

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

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.

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.

Launching kulikohli.co.uk!

Our member Kuli Kohli is riding high following the success of her debut collection, Rag Doll. This week, she has launched her website, packed full of information about her life and writing.

Kuli’s life has been full of challenge and adventure in equal measure, and her work reflects this dichotomy thoughtfully. Now there’s one central place to learn about all things Kuli!

We’re very proud to have Kuli as a regular and leading member of Blakenhall Writers, and wish her all the best in her continued success.

Why not take a peek at her website and learn more about this inspiring woman?

The lovely Kuli - picture courtesy of Kuli Kohli

Offa's Press Poetry Day

On Saturday 11th October, three of our members - Kuli, Roma and Cherry - attended a poetry workshop and walking day run by West Midlands-based publisher, Offa's Press.

We set off up the A5 for Pant, a village just outside of Oswestry in Shopshire. Unfortunately there was a broken bridge after we’d turned off the main road, so we had to take a short diversion across the border to Wales! But we were only in Wales for a few yards before we saw the ‘Welcome to England’ sign again!

We arrived at Pant village hall and made ourselves comfortable over tea and biscuits. Once all were present and accounted for, we began the first workshop. The theme of the day was ‘work.’

First, we examined poetry about different aspects of work, by such poets as Seamus Heaney and Maya Angelou. They ranged from paid work to housework and used work in different ways. We then did an exercise discussing our best and worst jobs, and knuckled down to write some poetry about work. It was interesting to hear the kinds of jobs people had done throughout their lives.

The threat of rain had cleared so we set off for a walk over nearby Llanymynech Rocks. We wound our way up the hillside, meeting some new personalities along the way!

On the ascent

New friends

Llanymynech Rocks is the site of some old lime kilns, where fertiliser was created by burning limestone quarried from the rock face. We passed by the kilns and the pits before heading up to see the quarry area. There is a lot of remaining evidence of the work which once took place there, including intact railway tracks and metal figures of the workers.

Metal statue of a worker

We settled down for lunch by the large, stripy rock face, where we were joined by some woolly friends! They stole the show as we all marvelled at their black fleeces and friendly demeanour. They live on a nearby farm and are let into the reserve to eat tough plants during winter, allowing wildflowers to flourish in the spring.

Picnic time!

Sheep scaling the dramatic rocks

After lunch we made our way back down the hill, ruminating on the industry which once bloomed there and how it affected the whole community. We arrived back at the village hall for our second workshop of the day, writing poetry which reflected the signs of work we had examined during the walk. It started to rain just as we got inside – what good timing!

There was a brief interlude before we were all due to meet at the local pub for our evening meal, and the three of us were invited my the manager of Offa’s Press, Simon Fletcher, to have a tea and cake break at his house, which was just down the road! We had a pleasant time discussing the day, Offa’s Press and writing in general, as well as admiring all of the artefacts Simon has collected over the years!

We met in the local pub and had a relaxed evening meal, before each having the chance to perform our poetry. Some people performed poetry they’d written during the day, and some had brought poems they’d already written on the theme of ‘work.’

Our girls enjoying the pub meal

For the finale of the evening, we were joined by Offa’s Press poet Dave Reeves, who entertained us with melodic renditions of his West Mids-dialect poetry, accompanied by his harmonica and squeeze-box!

As the night drew to a close we said our goodbyes and set off back through the darkness and fog of the winding Shropshire lanes! Roma entertained us with ghost stories as we laughed about the highs of the day.

All three of us had a wonderful day, and highly recommend going along when Offa’s Press set up their spring workshop.

September 13th Session & September Writing Task

In September we had a very special session. We’d spent the preceding month reading pieces of each other’s work which we needed help and support on to improve. We’d made notes on each person’s work and came together to share our thoughts.

We’d noted down things we liked about the pieces, and things which could be improved, done differently, or just tweaked. We made sure that nobody was critical of each other’s work and just made constructive comments.

It was a very useful exercise and it was great to see what kind of projects the group work on outside of our meetings. Usually when we meet up we do a writing exercise, and sometimes we share what we’ve worked on the following month, but we don’t always get a feel of everyone’s writing style through these exercises.

Letting other people read and feed back on your work is really valuable. It gives you an idea of how an audience might respond to your writing. Your readers can also suggest new ideas which you may not have thought of, or let you know of new techniques which can improve the overall feel of your work. But you’re not obliged to make any changes they suggest – just consider everything objectively and use your discretion to make your own changes.

Feeding back on someone else’s work can be difficult, especially if you want to offer suggestions but don’t want to offend them. Make sure that any suggestions you make are backed up by a good explanation – changes should improve the audience’s experience of the piece, so make a link between this and your advice. Try to look for the potential in a piece, and focus on the good as well as the constructive - give them a platform to build on.

I hope everyone managed to take away some considerations for their work. For September’s writing task, try to make some edits to your work based on the feedback you’ve received from the group.

Not everyone could make the September session, so where possible we will email you your feedback, otherwise we will let you have it in our next session, to take away and mull over.

There are lots of changes over the next few months, so keep an eye on Facebook and Twitter to make sure you’re in the loop!

August 9th Session & August Writing Task

We had a bit of a different session this month – instead of meeting in our usual place, we met up at Wolverhampton Art Gallery to try and inspire some writing from the artwork!

This technique is known as Ekphrasis, which is one art form responding to another. It’s a good technique for practicing idea development, as you already have a starting point.

We looked round the gallery, which has all sorts of artwork, from medieval paintings, to Victorian art, to sculpture, to modern art.

A good starting point is to ask yourself questions about the art:

•       What happened to this piece before it ended up in the gallery?
•       What are the people in the piece feeling or thinking?
•       What does this remind me of?
•       What were the people in this piece doing before, during or after this painting?
•       Where in the world has this artefact come from?
•       Who used to own or use this piece?
•       Who are all the different people involved in this piece (subjects, artist, owner etc), and what are their perspectives on the piece?



New Wire Across The Somme - Brian Yale





Looking Towards Ypres - Brian Yale



Whisper of Spring - Sara Page





The Lady of Shalott - Henry Darvall





A Japanese Book purchased by Wolverhampton Art School in the 1800s



Job: Man of Wood - Lancelot Bryan

Stained Glass display in the gallery

The Apothesis of Penelope Boothby - Henry Fuseli

Thanks to Wolverhampton Art Gallery for letting us take photos of these brilliant pieces. The writing task for August is to see if you can develop a poem or short story from one of the pieces of art you saw in the gallery.

If you didn't manage to come along to the session, why not visit the gallery in your own time? It's free to enter and conveniently in the centre of Wolverhampton. Alternatively, use another piece of art you're familiar with to try and inspire some writing, or even use the pictures in this article.

Can't wait to see what you come up with!

Introducing 'Rag Doll' by Kuli Kohli

We are very proud to share with you the news that one of our members, Kuli Kohli, is introducing her new booklet, ‘Rag Doll.’ The booklet is a tantalising mix of poetry and prose, examining how it feels being an Asian woman living with cerebral palsy.

Kuli has a great track record of publication across a variety of magazines, anthologies and websites, and now brings some of her finest pieces together for this touching and provocative booklet.

 "Kuli Kohli’s poetry has come out of a long process of finding her voice and understanding her life and its imposed limits. She writes fluently in a variety of styles and forms and tells us a great deal about what it’s like to be an Asian woman with disabilities in modern Britain. It is by turns moving and funny. She should be an inspiration to us all." Simon Fletcher - Poet and publisher

 "Lovely poems to move the heart and mind with a rainbow of emotions." Surjit Dhami - Meditation Teacher and Consultant Editor of Universal Target Magazine

To order a copy of this fantastic piece for £3.95, please get in contact via Facebook or Twitter, or leave a comment below.

May 10th Session & May Writing Task

For our May session, our member Eileen led a lesson about how to write the ‘Poetry of Emotion.’

We started out with the basics; brainstorming as many emotions as we could. Sometimes it’s easy to think all emotive poetry is about love because there is so much of it around! But there are actually a lot of different emotions which a poet can use. The only problem is that once you’ve chosen an emotion to write about, how do you describe it?

We each chose an emotion and used it in an exercise where we asked the following questions:

-          What colour is the emotion?

-          What does it taste like?

-          What does it smell like?

-          What does it look like?

-          What does it sound like?

-          What does it feel like?

This really helped us get under the skin of our chosen emotion by using different senses to bring it to life. It can be difficult to assign a taste, smell or sound to an emotion!

Here’s an example:

Guilt is a lingering putrid yellow

that tastes like acid reflux.

It smells like an urban underpass on Sunday morning,

looks like a peeling carcass,

and sounds like a constant drone of insects.

It feels like dragging a rock, the frayed rope ribboning scars into your palms.

We’ve now got a starting point for an interesting poem about emotion!

For our next exercise, we looked at simile and metaphor.

A SIMILE is where you say something IS LIKE something else.

e.g. as green as grass, as dark as night, sharp like a knife

A METAPHOR is when you say something IS something else.

e.g. Her old hand was a withered leaf

Using these way of describing things, we tried to think of metaphors and similes for different emotions. Here’s some for guilt again, and also for love:

<Simile> Guilt feels like your conscience is caught in a trouser press.

Love is like honey being poured over your life.

<Metaphor> Guilt is woodworm; corrosive, picking holes in you, and weakening your structural integrity.

Love is honey being poured over your life.

Simile and metaphor are really good devices for making your reader understand exactly what you meant in your writing. Therefore they’re really useful when talking about emotion, because if you’re trying to describe an emotion to your reader, you should liken it to something they can relate to.

We tried to write a poem using metaphor and simile.

Serenity is undisturbed leaves on the forest floor,

blades of grass, warm underfoot,

and sinking into the sound of waves.

Serenity is a fluttering drape flashing views of a sunny day.

an untouched glass of milk, fresh from the fridge and smooth as an opal.

Serenity is walking into sunbeams, blinded but footsure,

alone in engulfing yellow light.

May Writing Task

Our writing task this month is to pick an emotion and produce a poem using either (or both) of the techniques we learned.