A little bit of...poetry?

I'm not known for my poetry. I have written poems, but they tend to be ones that rhyme because I find it relatively easy to write to a rhythm, but I've never really understood or appreciated haikus or sonnets or other formal poetic forms.

That said, I do occasionally dabble. 

The first time I was published, I'd won a limerick competition (and £50!) in a writing magazine. It went something like...

A young lady who felt fashion keenly

Tried on a new-fangled bikini

With two bits of string, 

Some knots and a ring

The thing would've baffled Houdini! 

I did write some poetry - actually, it's probably more accurate to say I wrote rhymes - in one of my Granny Rainbow stories about the Poetic Postman. And I've sometimes put new words to familiar hymn tunes for Christmas services. But I don't write much 'proper' poetry - the stuff that is deep and meaningful, that makes a connection with the listener. 

But you might remember in my last post that I said I'd decided to try a bit more poetry after attending a poetry session at the online Writing East Midlands Conference. Well, last weekend, I got the opportunity. I attended States of Independence Day Online, an event usually held at De Montfort University in Leicester, where independent publishers, authors and booksellers get together. (The last time I went, I met an agent who took me on for a short while, having seen StarMark) The programme was a mix of live discussion panels on Zoom, and pre-recorded readings and workshops on YouTube. 

One of the workshops was by Maria Taylor, a poet who also happens to be a neighbour of mine. She gave three very different writing prompts and read some of her own poetry to show how the themes  of 'routine', 'ghosts' and 'the great outdoors' could be interpreted. 

So I had a go. 

Here's the one I was most proud of - which I wrote it out and pushed it through Maria's door to say thank you for such a great session.

Homemade wine

As I drink my homemade fruit wines - 

the blood red-black of mighty fine blackberry,

the rosy tint of red gooseberry, 

the dryness of next-door's plum, 

the sharpness of raspberry -

you are with me in every sip.

Your wines were pea-pod white, carrot, and parsnip,

tastes I never got to sample before you went,

because of my age.

I could only watch the bottles being taken

     from the darkness of an under-stairs cupboard,

to be opened by grieving uncles,

who raised a toast

to the maker of the vintages 

who was beyond drinking them by then.

I'm NOT a poet...

We're lucky enough to have some poets in NIBS, our writing group. I'm always in awe of people who can write poetry - especially the stuff that doesn't rhyme!

Personally, I have a strange relationship with poetry. I can do it if I rhyme, but the non-rhyming stuff just ends up like prose to me, and I've always struggled to see what makes poetry, poetry.

We decided to challenge ourselves last night, and write poetry. Due to circumstances beyond their control, our two poets couldn't attend, so I spent a couple of hours on the computer, looking up poetry activities for the session.

Bear in mind that my own previous experience of poetry consists of;

1. A £50 prize winning limerick:
    A young lady who felt fashion keenly
    tried on a new-fangled bikini. 
    With two bits of string, 
    some cloth and a ring, 
    the thing would've baffled Houdini!

2. Putting new words to hymn music for Christmas carols
    (to the tune of 'All things bright and beautiful')
    Once upon a starry night
    Two thousand years ago
    Shone a star especially bright
    To show the way to go...

3. Silly rhymes for the children when they were much, much younger.

So I'm not exactly qualified to teach anyone, but I was prepared to muddle through and have a go.

Who knew there were so many forms of poem? One site listed 86 - 86! - different forms, so I spent a while rooting through them to find fairly simple ones we could have a go at.

I also discovered is that poetry emphasizes language's musical quality, uses condensed language (some forms are so concise, every word has to count) and often portrays intense feelings, which, interestingly, is a dead giveaway about robot-written poetry, because robots can't put emotion into poems. There are also lots of techniques used in poetry - rhyming words, alliteration, repetitiveness, metaphors, imagery, rhythm...

I put together an outline for the evening, based on some fab poetry prompts and a few forms.

First, are songs actually poems if you take the music out? We tried it, using 'Twinkle, twinkle little star' as our base. For most, it seemed to work well - and nobody was forced to sing their poem to prove it fitted the music. Here's what I wrote, and I bet you can't read it without singing it in your head!

Flippin' heck! It's ten to eight!
Get up quick, we'll all be late.
Alarm not set - whose fault was that?
Never mind, we'll blame the cat.
Eight o'clock - get up, I say!

Why Mum, when it's Saturday?

Having warmed up, we tried a tricube form after that. These poems have three stanzas, each consisting of three lines, with each line consisting of three syllables. Sounds easy, but it's harder than it looks. Every word had to count - there were some very good end results, even after some misunderstandings about what the form consisted of (down to my poor explanation, I'm afraid.) We took the weather as our theme, and most of the group took the horrible damp fog that had fallen and thickened, the closer you got to our meeting place...

I didn't. I had a go at 'Storm' and 'Snow'. Not sure which I prefer...

Storm.                                                    Snow

Dark clouds build                                  First one flake
and fill up                                              which melts fast
the wide sky                                           on the grass.

after days                                               Then more fall
of hot sun                                               and settle
and clear blue                                       on the ground 

lightning flash                                         until all
thunder loud                                          is soft white
world washed clean.                             and blurred edges.

The final exercise was to write something freeform. Now, I'm still not sure whether free form poetry should rhyme or not. I found myself slipping into rhyme almost straight away, so I might have to take some time to rewrite it, challenging myself to step away from rhyme. The poem could either start with an instruction, or had to include the same or similar phrase, repeated at least three times throughout the poem.

I finished mine this morning:

Will World War 3 start today?

An orange-faced man sits in a white house
With intolerance, ignorance, greed.
A tweeter impressive
Stirring the hate.
Will World War 3 start today?

'We're going to hell in a handcart!'
That's what they used to say,
and the wheels the politicians are turning
are sending us well on the way.
Will World War 3 start today?

Once it was only the soldiers who fought
And others would stay home and pray.
But modern day battles are not so distinct
and the bombs kill more,
day after day.
Will World War 3 start today?

Now chemicals ravage the lungs and the nerves among children just wanting to play.
Politicians deny;
"It's untrue!" they lie
while in basements the bodies remain.
Will World War 3 start today?

Reprisals are sought,
and red buttons are primed for more death to be sent on its way
"It's justified!"
Mortified, we watch the news
and helpless, we all look away.
Will World War 3 start today...?

Where is compassion? 
Where is the peace that survivors and onlookers crave?
Where is humanity?
Oh, I forgot.
It's right there. 
Look - deep in the graves.
World War 3 is in Syria today.

I think we saw glimpses of what we might achieve through poetry, but we're going to need some more practise before most of us are truly comfortable with it. I can certainly see why I'm a novellist, not a poet!

For now, I'll keep a lookout for the poems of Brian Bilston which pop up on my facebook feed every now and again, and try to learn from those who wrote poetry far, far better than me...

'Spring'-ing into action with NIBS

Our April meeting had a Spring theme to it.

Our warm up was an Eggs-traordinary piece, where we imagined we had an egg - but WHAT would hatch out of it? Mine had a baby mermaid, but there was a multi-coloured dragon, a one-legged chick, a river of golden light...

Our second exercise used story telling dice. If you've not seen them before, they look a little bit like this:

Instead of numbers, there are simple pictures on each face, which you can interpret any way you like. So, for example, in the picture above there is an image of a house. That could be taken as a literal house, as home, a roof over your head, security, a hotel... Nothing is off-limits.

There were six of us, so to begin with we each took one dice ( there were six in our set - other sets have up to nine or you can add 'booster' sets.) and rolled it. We then listed as many things for that single image as we could. Then we rolled all six together and tried to plot out a storyline using all six pictures. I have to confess, I was alright with one dice, but got overwhelmed using all six - there was almost too much choice for me; I couldn't pin it down. Others faired really well though, including all six images in their outlines. What was weirdest was that the first story read out involved a trip to the opticians; the second, an optician who joined a dating site; the third, an online date that went wrong! Strange how the ideas sort of ran on as we went round the table - and yet there had been no discussion about how each of us were going to use the six different images...

Our final activity was in honour of The Bard. April is the month in which Shakespeare was born and also died, so I looked up how to write a sonnet and we had a go. It wasn't to everyone's taste...some of us are not keen on poetry of this type because 'it's HARD!' I've never done any Shakespeare, apart from The Merchant of Venice for CSE English Lit, so I was up for the challenge, but yes - it was hard!

We worked as a group, and managed to get the first quatrain (sounds posh - just means verse!) finished before the end of the meeting. Here it is...I might be tempted to complete it, later!

A (bit of a ) Sonnet for Spring.

From Winter's death a Spring is newly sprung
As first new shoots of green from ground emerge.
The day begins as liquid notes are sung
At Equinox, as day and night converge.

A little bit of flash - In the Darkness of Night...

As you'll have seen from my previous post, I've been busy editing StarMark. Still am, actually - had completely under estimated how much time it takes, but more of that at a later date! 

Last Wednesday, I took some time off from editing to go to NIBS.

We had a musical evening...no singing, but I did take a stack of CD's with me. 

One of the exercises was to pick a CD whose artwork appealed, and use that as inspiration.What was interesting was that they were my CD's - and I'd never looked so closely at some of the art before. Did you realise that on the Muse album Resistance, there's the world right in the centre of the rainbow tunnel? Or that on Muse's Absolution cover, the guy left standing has a gas mask in his hand? I didn't. (And yes, I have a lot of Muse!)

Anyway, I chose Madness's The Liberty of Norton Folgate. Here's the cover;

Now, at first sight, the shadow looks like he's dancing, but there's something about the silhouette that I found more sinister. Perhaps I'd been watching too much Dickensian...but it definitely felt a bit Victorian.

Anyway, here's what I wrote as a result...

In the darkness of night...

In the darkness of night, 

he comes,

in a coat made of shadow,

his cane tapping time away with every cobble it connects with.

A hint of swagger,

a dance of confidence,

where there is fear in a street cowed by his rule.

He trips lightly in this place,

tips his hat to the women he owns...

On the surface a gentleman-

but the cane breaks flesh and bone if his property fails to deliver.

In the darkness of night he comes,

to be caught only by the lamplight - never the law -

near dark alleys and dead ends,

watching and waiting with a tiger's smile

to entice the curious or desperate to sample his wares.

Until, as the gas lamps sputter and fade at dawn

he melts away until darkness falls.

Saratha's and saris

We arrived in India around 3pm on the Saturday afternoon, Trichy-time. One of the first things we did was head to the textile shop, because one of my travelling companions is being consecrated as a bishop later this month and wanted some clerical shirts made in Bishop Purple (if that's not an official colour, like emerald green or sky blue, it should be!), while my other companion is a curate and needed clerical shirts in black. (Plus he'd bought a shirt order from another vicar too!)

So, off to Saratha's in Trichy we went...

On foot, we negotiated oncoming tuctucs, two-wheelers, cars, carts and pedestrians in the narrow market street to reach the 1.5 million square feet complex. Started in Trichy in 1969, it claims to be the largest textile showroom in India, with a huge range of fabrics and ready-made clothing.

What an experience! It took some considerable time to find the right shade of Bishop Purple. "Too pink. Too bluey. Too purpley." Yes, really...Bishop Purple is actually a sort of pinky-purple that nudges towards cerise, but isn't. A bit like this:

Anyhow, suffice to say that finding black was a lot easier - though there are actually a lot of different shades of black. And white, which I'd never appreciated before.

The next step was a churithar suit, for me. Oh...boyoboyoboy!

Now, you know when you walk into a UK clothes shop, and there's just THE colour, for that season? And the shop has nothing except that colour in it? (It's a revolting mess of mucky green and grey and black and camel for this spring, it seems). And nine times out of ten, you can guarantee it's not a colour that suits you?

Well, in Saratha's churithar department, there's none of that. You need to know your size - I'm apparently a 40, which sounded huge for my petite frame but did fit; I tried a top on, much to the interest of shop assistants and customers because I took off my shirt and was wearing a vest top under, thus exposing shoulders and cleavage (what little I have) which is NOT the done thing in India.

Then you choose your colour. Simply go to the shelf or rack with that size on it, and the assistants pull out pile upon pile of folded suits, spreading them out for you to take your pick of the myriad colours available. It was like being in a candy store. Contrasting colours, toning colours, pastels, brights, glitter, embroidery...I could've spent hours there, drinking it all in.

Ready-made churithar choices...

More choice if you want to make them yourself...

The devil's in the detail...

The one I finally chose was pink with brown embroidery, brown trousers and a pink-printed brown scarf. It was sleeveless, and I asked about getting one with sleeves - what I didn't realise is that the sleeves are never attached. It's up to you to get them sewn in if you want to.

A rather bad selfie...

 

Embroidery detail around the hem

When you've decided on your purchase, there's none of this wandering around, stuffing it and other items into a mesh bag to go to the tills at the end of your visit. Oh no. One of the (thousands, I'm certain of it!) shop assistants is called over, given the item that you wish to purchase, then you follow him - and it's always a man, the only female assistants we saw were on the bra counter - to the cash desk, where the process of paying begins.

Paying in Saratha's - a step-by-step guide.
1. Assistant hands item(s) to till man no.1.
2. Till man 1 asks if you are paying cash or credit.
3. You hand over your money or card.
4. Item and money are given to the cashier. He sorts out your change. AT THE SAME TIME, you are given a receipt by till man no.1 to say how much your purchases were and that you've handed some money over.
5. You move along a line, trying to keep tabs on your item(s) and hand over your receipt to till man no.2 to show you've paid.
6. Till man no. 2 (or 3, I rather lost track) gives you back your change, your stamped receipt and your purchase in a Saratha's bag.
7. Repeat as often as necessary, depending on how many different departments or counters you make a purchase from...

If you want to see how fast these guys work, take a look at this video clip...Cashiers! 

On the Sunday evening, we went back again - this time to look at gold fabric for other bishop-y accessories (we nearly had a disco-bish when we were shown gold-sequinned lace...!) and to purchase a sari - for me, not the almost-bish - because we were going back to Pudukkottai village on the Monday and Sarah, Reverend Benjamin's wife, had agreed to dress me in a sari for our visit to the school.

I chose a rather beautiful pink and gold silk one, because the Women's Fellowship in the village wear a uniform sari of pink and gold; mine didn't exactly match, but it would be a link. Then we headed off to buy a ready-made sari blouse and petticoat. The gentleman on the counter took one look at me, said "34" and found the right shade of pink to match the embroidery.

Sari bling...

Now - I digress a little from the Saratha's experience here, but if ever you buy a sari for yourself, be aware that most of them come with a blouse bit. This is an extra length on the material which is cut off to make a matching blouse. Except I didn't know that, so poor Sarah had her work cut out when she was trying to use up an extra metre or so of fabric in the draping when she dressed me.

Back to Saratha's...

We had a rest day later in the week, and N and I planned a shopping trip, to buy gifts for our families. Clothing is cheap and there is such a wide choice available...so we headed back to Saratha's again. Another visit to the churithar suit counter, but for N's wife this time; I'd enjoyed wearing the pink sari so much, I decided to buy a second, lighter one. This time, we were accompanied by two teachers from Bishop Heber Secondary School, Shineo and Josephine, who helped us with our purchases. And this time, I had my camera...

Now, there was so much choice, I could have spent hours and hours choosing. In fact, this must've been the norm, as we saw families sitting on the floor in the shop eating lunch, they'd been there so long...

Look to the left, where folk are taking a rest...

I ended up making quite quick decisions, in spite of the teachers encouraging me to keep looking. I couldn't properly explain how having such a massive choice was alien, that I was used to having limited options and found the variety somewhat overwhelming!

Anyway, purchases were made. I left with shirts for Mr Squidge and T, a shawl for J and a purple and lime accented, black and white patterned sari with black blouse and petticoat for me.

You'd think that would have been enough, wouldn't you? Nope.

*whispers* We managed a fourth trip!

And we did it on our own, on our last afternoon in Trichy, this time because N wanted to buy himself a dhoti - the traditional sarong-like item that a lot of men wear - and I wanted to purchase a second churithar suit.

Dhotis were purchased, with the help of a dhoti-dressing team; a young man who had been appointed our guide and four of his mates on the towel counter, one of whom spoke a bit of English and took on the task of showing N how to wear the dhoti. (Some of them have velcro!). Then it was churithar time again...

I was torn between a wine-and-lime-green or a turquoise-with-chocolate version. I could've bought both (good job I didn't, as my suitcase would never have closed) but resisted, as I felt that my Western materialistic side was beginning to rear its head at that point and I felt a bit greedy. So I plumped for wine-and-lime and we set off back to the hostel on a tuc-tuc ride that I will never, ever forget...

Hem embroidery

Neckline detail

I loved Saratha's. The wimp in me, who didn't like the thought of bartering, found the price tags much easier...and next time I go to Trichy, I will book an entire day in the shop I think!

The weird thing is, back in the UK, the gold on my pink sari has lost its gleam. There's something about the light here, about the way we're all wrapped up and the grey skies that seems to suck the colour out of everything. I was moved to write a poem about it the other day;

Indian colour.

Gilt thread, which gleamed in Indian sunlight, 
has lost its brightness in the pale winter light of England. 
The glitter of diamante is replaced with tacky slogans, 
elegance by shapeless leggings and baggy jumpers. 
That coloured world is gone, replaced with black and grey and denim blue. 

Before, there was baby pink with lemon yellow,
wine with lime,
royal purple with satsuma orange,
turquoise with chocolate brown,
forest green with midnight black.
Stiff silk, chic chiffon, cool cotton and luscious linen.
Patterned, embroidered, printed, plain, 
gilded, silvered, jewelled.
No two the same, no ordered rainbow, 
simply a feast for the eyes, 
satisfying an appetite with rich shades, fresh pastels, unexpected contrasts or subtle blends

I wanted to drink in the colour until I was full -
so that I need never feel colourless again.

Autumn, according to NIBS

Last night was our monthly get-together for NIBS, the creative writing group I help to run. I chose an autumn theme, and went armed with some autumny pictures (everything from pumpkin soup to rutting deer and fantasy figures in dresses made of leaves), a basket full of coloured leaves, conkers and berried branches, and some quotes about autumn from Goodreads. (If you see anything here to get your writerly juices flowing, why not have a go and post in the comments below? Or link back to your blog space, if you have one?)

A basketful of autumn...

Autumn words and pictures

We started off with a quick reason-write; Exactly why are squirrels gathering all those nuts and berries?

The first one read out had us in stitches and stole the show; did you know that squirrels are working towards world domination and the berries are just a front for their weapon-making collaboration with the moles? We even got an evil laugh at the end of the reading... There were some great ideas coming through and it gave us a bit of time for everyone to arrive as unfortunately, there'd been an accident on the road up to church which meant a couple of folk had to turn back and come the long way round to get to us...

And then, for the first time at NIBS, we just did what we wanted. Normally, we try a few writing exercises, but this time, because everyone's fairly confident now at producing something off-the-cuff, we just went for it! Faced with the props I'd taken, there was free choice as to whether to write poetry, a story, a memoir - so long as it had an autumn theme, it really didn't matter.

We wrote for half an hour, and boy, did we end up with some beauties...

 - A short story, told from a conker's point of view, right up to the point of him becoming a 'sixer'. We were all nodding at the mention of being stuck in a pocket or polished on a trouser leg - how many times have we done that  as both children and adults?

 - A beautiful piece of poetry based on the quote 'autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons'. The author usually writes emotively and this was no exception - I was really moved and quite overwhelmed by the finished piece, which compared autumn's treasures to those of the other seasons. Quite beautiful.

 - A really interesting piece about autumn as the bringer of death - would you have ever described the leaves of this season as 'red as blood, yellow as pus in a wound and brown as crisp as burnt flesh?' Thought not! The author admitted afterwards to not liking autumn: it showed! And made a lasting impression...

 - Another took as their prompt the picture of a woman in a leafy dress, walking with her owl through the woods. The narrator was hidden in a tree, watching - we never found out why, but there was so much longing coming through in the writing, a real yearning for...something.

 - One author was fascinated by a particular leaf I'd brought - she wrote a short but gorgeous poem which made us feel the beauty of the colours and the contrast between the 'last crescendo' of the life of the leaf and its ultimate death.

Me? Well, I had a go at a poem and then did a bit of a 'five senses of autumn' thing, where I listed lots of things that mean autumn to me. Can't say I was entirely happy with either - I would have loved to have evoked some of the imagery that the rest of the group managed, but I tend to be a bit more matter-of-fact in my writing - plain speaking, almost - which doesn't have quite the feel I'd loved to have achieved. But I'll share the poem with you and leave you to judge. It was based on the quote 'October, baptize me with leaves!' and I've tweaked it a bit overnight. Here goes...


Autumn's baptism.

October, baptize me with leaves!
Pour your fiery shades into this chill, fresh morning.
Bright sun with no heat illuminates copper and gold and orange and brown
as the cold night forces the branches to finally loose their hold
and the leaves are let go.
They float down on a whispering breeze
which turns these thousands - millions - of individual deaths
into a short, illusory dance of life,
until they lay still on dew-damp grass.
I scuff through the crisp, rustling shell that blankets the earth
as summer heat is washed from the world
and I am baptised afresh in autumn's leafy waters;
a final blaze of glory before bare branches and glittering frosts bring winter.

A new carol for Christmas...

Remember my recent poetry post? And that I said I sometimes put new words to old hymns and carols? Well, here's a carol I wrote back in 2011; it's being sung at church - on Christmas Day - for the first time ever! 

If you don't know the tune for the original, Jesus is Lord, follow this link... (though I'd sing it a bit quicker!) If you like my carol and would like to use it in your church, please just drop me a line to let me know. All I ask is that you credit me with the words. 

Jesus is born! (Tune ‘Jesus is Lord’ by David J Mansell)

Jesus is born! We see him in the manger

Babe’s precious head

Laid in a bed

Of wood and straw

Jesus is born!

With song we now declare it

God’s gift of love for all

To bridge heaven and earth

Jesus is born! Jesus is born!

Sing joyful alleluias for Jesus is born.

Jesus is born!

The first ‘noel’ is sounded

Heaven is rent

With angels sent

To shepherds poor

Jesus is born!

‘Go now and see the baby

Glory to God in heaven

And peace to you all’

Jesus is born! Jesus is born!

Sing joyful alleluias for Jesus is born.

Jesus is born!

Celestial news confirms it

Up in the sky

Star way up high

Tells of the birth

Jesus is born!

Three kings leave all to follow

Bringing their precious gifts

to the new baby king

Jesus is born! Jesus is born!

Sing joyful alleluias for Jesus is born.

Jesus is born!

And still God tries to reach us

Calling afresh

To men of flesh

To come to him

Jesus is born!

God’s love forgives us freely

Taking away our tears

And then setting us free

Jesus is born! Jesus is born!

Sing joyful alleluias for Jesus is born.

Katherine Hetzel 2011

The Nativity, BBC 2010

Maybe I CAN write poetry...

I've always loved rhyming words. There's something musical about them if they're done right, and I have hung on to many of the children's picture books from when they were little because the combinations of words and pictures were my favourite bedtime books to read to them. Dr Seuss, Allan and Janet Ahlberg, Julia Donaldson...always such fun to share.

I love writing rhymes myself. I seem to have a bit of a knack for it - though it doesn't always come out brilliantly - and somehow, the mechanics of writing in rhyme feels like 'proper' poetry to me. In fact, the only time I've ever won a writing competition (and fifty quid!) was with a limerick :

A young lady who felt fashion keenly
Tried on a new-fangled bikini.
With two bits of string,
Some cloth and a ring,
The thing would've baffled Houdini!

I've also written new words to old hymns and carols...here's the chorus and first verse of a carol*, to the tune 'All Things Bright and Beautiful':

(Chorus)
Once upon a starry night
Two thousand years ago
Shone a star especially bright
To show the way to go.

Three wise men saw it gleaming
And knew what it foretold
A Saviour come among us
As prophets told of old...

I don't really understand the rest of what's classified as poetry. I remember reading one poem in English Lit, years ago...written by Spike Milligan I think, about abortion. Put me off for life. It didn't rhyme, the subject (to a pretty naive 15 year old) was alien, and I just didn't like it. Same with other forms. I know a Haiku has a syllable pattern, but it doesn't rhyme. I looked through my daughter's GCSE poetry selection and shuddered, 'cos I didn't understand what made it poetry.

So I thought I couldn't write it. Until last week. NIBS had a Winter Warmer Poetry Workshop for their last meeting of the year, led by chaplain and published poet, Frances Ballantyne. Our focus was Christmas, and Frances shared some poetry with us before encouraging us to try our hand at a couple of exercises. One was simply to take a line from a carol and write two more after it. Another was to take a date (the eating sort, not the calendar sort!), a nut or a satsuma as one of the essentials of Christmas to inspire us. Look at a Christmas card picture, and write new words to replace the impersonal 'Seasons greetings' printed inside. All simple, fairly easy, and not a syllabic pattern in sight. (Is syllabic a real word, I wonder?)

Anyway, I found it enlightening and had my confidence boosted. So much so, I'm going to share some of what I wrote with you.

The Christmas Essential.

There was no satsuma in my stocking.
I got my shiny penny, a plastic whistle,
Chocolate coins and some weird flavoured lip balm -
but no satsuma in my stocking.
A notebook. A tiny star to hang on my tree...
but no satsuma in my stocking.
Is there a satsuma shortage?
Did Father Christmas forget?
I know I always sneak it back onto the fruitbowl
'cos I much prefer grapes...
But this Christmas
There was no satsuma in my stocking.

Whether it's good poetry or not, I have no idea. It comes from my own experiences of Christmas, the place Frances said her poetry comes from, flavoured with heart, life and faith. Maybe I'll share some faith poetry with you...one day. For now, I'll stick to the satsuma.







* If you'd like the rest of the words to the carol, or to see others I've written, just drop me a line - I'm happy for you to sing them in your own church, providing I'm credited.

The Priory Penpushers

No, it's not really the name of our writing group - but 'First Meeting of a Writing Group' wasn't a very interesting title for a blog post.

(In time, we're hoping to set up a blog for the group so that anyone who can't make the meetings will still be able to have a go at the exercises and share useful links etc. In fact, that was part of our homework - to come up with a name for ourselves... )

Eight budding authors met at a local pub (The Priory) last night, all with a love of writing and all with various reasons for joining this little group. For some, it was to reconnect with something they had enjoyed in the past but had stopped doing. For others, it was to provide discipline and organisation to get the novel written. And then there were those, like myself, who belonged to online writing communities (yay for cloudies!) but wanted face-to-face contact more than just once a year at York.

We introduced ourselves and decided some ground rules in how we wanted to proceed (confidentiality, honesty, use accept-adapt-reject for example) before moving on to writing exercises to break the ice.

Needless to say, we had come prepared. Most of us were pen and paper types, but there was one electronic version. As in the writing tools. Not the author himself. I had a notebook from my school leaving present which I have decided to dedicate to writing group 'stuff'. It set me wondering whether anyone has ever looked at the psychology of notebooks and what it says about their owners...

Anyway, back to the point. I'm going to share the results of my efforts.


Exercise 1. I remember when...

3 minutes, writing things you remembered. Didn't matter what.

I first tried this as a stream of consciousness exercise at York last year with Andrew Willie and later used it to blog about my uni years. Last night we had recent memories, memories dredged up from years ago, emotional memories...and I was struck by how trusting everyone was to share some of the things they did. Here are mine - with apologies to my sister!

I remember when my pocket money was 20p a week.
I remember when the Icebox sold sweets in jars and would split a quarter pound between two types for you.
I remember when the knife stuck in my foot behind the Co-op deli counter.
I remember when I pushed my sister into the rose bush and Mum had to pick thorns out of her bum!
I remember when I found out that Beacon Hill used to be a volcano and I got scared it would erupt.

Exercise 2. Dictionary dipping.

Dive into a dictionary, find a word you don't know and write a hypothetical definition for it.

I'd taken a couple of ordinary dictionaries, but found it hard to pick a word without looking at the definition. Fortunately, we had a dictionary of nursing terminology, which threw up all sorts of interesting possibilities. I seemed to go down a sci-fi/fantasy route with mine...

Pentosuria: A large, forest-dwelling animal with five legs.
Demulcent: The festival where 100 turban-wearing women plant Demul bulbs in the swamps of Arcan.
Gaucher's Disease: The slow rotting of the feet of gauch farmers. (Gauch is farmed in mild acid fields between the Arcanian swamps and the Baratha Mountains.)

Exercise 3. Nouns and Verbs.

Write two lists - one of ten nouns, one of ten verbs. Randomly pair them up and write a sentence to include both. Then create a story using all the sentences.

We decided to swop lists, because we found we were trying to consciously pick words that would 'fit' into a cohesive story - it worked much better. I got my sentences written, but not my story...here are a few, with the noun and verb highlighted.

Sprinting with a knife would've been fine if he'd not tripped over the dog.
When Scott collided with the blonde in the pink sequinned hotpants, his first thought wasn't for his spilt beer.
He'd done his best, but realised he'd probably never win the Great British Bake-off when the judges spat out his Victoria sponge.

And then there was homework...

After our dictionary dipping, it was suggested that we all took the same word and wrote our own definition of it, to see how different they all were, and if we wanted to, we could finish off our nouns and verbs piece too. But we also had a couple of other things to try.

7x7x7 - Grab the 7th book from your bookshelf. Open to page 7. Find the 7th sentence on the page. Begin a poem with that sentence - limit it to 7 lines.

Noticing - Take time to notice what goes on around you. Take notes/pictures to remind you. Use one of these interesting things to write a short story or poem and bring it to the next meeting.

There you go -  that was our first, very productive meeting. Looking forward to the next one already.

In the meantime, I'm going to throw down the gauntlet for all you Scribbles readers! Remember the dictionary dipping? The one word we all took away to write a definition for? It was Tarsalgia; I challenge you to post your own definition in the comments below! As wacky or wonderful as you like - but please keep it (relatively) clean. Have fun!

Lest we forget...11.11.13

Lost at Sea.

No cross, no grave, to mark the place

where a plane sank in the sea

taking Seargeant Gooch down with it

on that day in ’43.

He was my Grandma’s brother -

(christened Daniel, known as Jim)

- an RAF air gunner.

Did he think it would be him

who would manage to cheat death

and carry on ‘til conflict’s end?

Did he hope to dodge the gunfire

and a coffin, like his friends?

They only found the pilot:

just one body, washed to shore,

but all the others disappeared

and Jim was just one more.

No cross, no grave for him –

only a poppy, once a year

in the corner of a photoframe,

the picture still so dear.

With Grandma’s death, the ritual ends…

Jim’s memory fades away.

Yet maybe not, for here it is

for you to read today.

 

Sergeant Daniel Last Gooch, aka Jim

As a child, I remember wondering who the young man was in the photo on top of the cabinet, but Grandma never spoke of him. And every November, the poppy would appear. I wrote this poem last year, when my uncle told me what happened...

RAF Sergeant Daniel Last Gooch was based with 100 squadron at RAF Grimsby. His plane, a Lancaster, ED599 and radio sign HW-S, went down over the sea after flying between Bordeaux and Cherbourg on the 4 March 1943. No trace of the plane was ever found, though the pilot’s body was recovered some 30 miles away and buried in France. It is assumed that the crew went down with the plane.