It had been a while since I last drove out to the writing
centre at Moniack Mhor.
The last time,
it had been a cold day.
Ice on a single
track road, with twists and turns, and always the possibility of something coming
in the opposite direction had not put me in the right frame of mind for writing
anything – a will perhaps to cover the worst scenario on the way back.
Yesterday was a warm day, no ice and I was
earlier than I needed to be.
The fourteen who signed up plus the tutor introduced
themselves. I am always suspicious then
someone says they have never written poems before. They always go on to write something
well-crafted and inspiring.
Task 1 - to put pen to paper, to just make a mark, our
first task involved choosing two words – an animal/insect and a favourite word
and creating a three line poem using them both.
Something bad had to happen.
caterpillar munches
leaves on a shuggley branch
blackbird eats
caterpillar
life and death,
two seconds apart
Not a great start to the day, but no one expected
Shakespeare. We talked about haikus - 5
syllable, 7 syllable – 5 syllable offerings of something a Buddhist would be
proud to live by. Our offerings if they
hit the criteria were christened “bastard haikus”.
Task 2 – the inspiration for this one was a Norman
MacCaig poem
“Notations of Ten Summer MInuites”.
We had more than ten minutes to come up with
our own observations of the scenery inside or out.
I wrote notes, bent the rules, veered off
topic somewhat and wrote something that contrasted the peace of Moniack with my
normal classroom environment.
Some
strong images were applauded. My opening and closing stanza were dismissed as
having too much tell and not enough show.
Task 3 – I came into my own on this one. A list poem is all about lists. I do lists – the to-do kind which doesn’t always
get done. “Questions I wanted to ask you in the swimming pool” by Emily Berry
was the prompt. She is a modern poet who
has chosen not to post this poem anywhere on the internet – so no link. Her
poem features a list of questions. This is where prose and poetry seem to nudge
each other. It looks like prose, reads
like prose but it’s a poem. Maybe it is
the poet that decides it’s a poem and not the reader. We didn’t really sort
that one out.
Cake
why must you place
yourself in my line of vision, warm soft
brown with an
illicit smear of icing? Why must your smell be
intoxicating,
making me giddy with your spices? Why must you
corner me, call
me, coax me into consummation as you stir my taste buds?
why must you hoard
together a thousand calories or more and laugh at
my bathrooms
scales? Why must you exploit my weakness? Why
must you be
someone else’s forgotten slice- not mine? Don’t you know
I would never
discard you?
Task 4 was optional, another list poem prompted by “Props”
by Emily Berry. The story is told
through a list of props someone might compile as if they were planning a
play. In the case of “Props” it is a
jaunt through the Bible story and God’s plan of salvation.
Lunch was announced and I admit to abandoning my work
easily to head to the kitchen. Chicken
soup was on offer and stuff to make sandwiches. Gluten free options were also
covered.
I didn’t need an hour.
It’s not as if I could pop into town and do some shopping. A turn about
the various buildings didn’t take that long. I took a few photos with my phone
but they weren’t up to much. It was cold
and breezy outside. I coveted their
clothes line and thought about washing that was stagnating in the machine at
home.
Task 5 began with a look at the language we use. Specialised vocabulary can be great for poets
– apparently. We were called to come up
with a list of words - 3 scientific/medical words, 3 religious words, 3 words
from the world of finance, 3 slang or street words, and 3 words from any other
interest.
He shifts his
atoms to meditate beneath a tree
And sows the seeds
of his inner debt recovery
“Dude” he thinks,
“Let’s baptise the bank balance
And resurrect the
lymphatic system
Mitosis demands he
doesn’t dis the baseline
Of his economic
slump
Everything is
level at deuce
It turns out he’s
not the EMO he thought he was
Task 6 – yes, she was throwing everything at us in the
hope that something would stick. The poem
“The Race” by Sharon Olds was
interesting in that the way the lines were structured with unnatural line
breaks created speed.
It fitted the
story of rushing to catch a plane.
Joe
tells a story that because I was too busy nosing around the duty free store we
almost missed a flight from Dublin.
I
don’t remember it that way at all.
This was one poem too far. We were
supposed to compose a journey poem, the journey being for an urgent
purpose. I took a slow walk to the
toilet and a slow walk back – timewasting. I wrote and abandoned one thing to
begin and abandon another. I was
poetried out.
We shared the different poems we had
written and, I was right, these people who claimed not to have written poems
before – I declared them to have stretched the truth a little.
We talked about free poems and
structure. There don’t appear to be any rules
about line endings. There is a song, or
music, that is heard when a poem is read – a poet knows whether the music is
good or not. Someone suggested that as
long as you could justify your line breaks they should stand – if you couldn’t
then you must rethink.
We discussed the use of capital
letters at the start of lines. The letter is perhaps too big and commands too
much attention compared to the message of the poem.
We talked about reading and
experiencing life and making that the basis of our intuition that something
works or not. You write what you write
from what you read and experience.
The final piece of advice was to keep
a messy notebook!
She issued two homework tasks without any obligation to
do them and post the results on to her.
The second task which appeals was based on
“My Mother’s Lips” by C K
Williams.
He makes use of extremely long
lines with multiple clauses – for what reason I have no idea.
It is the kind of poem I would never read to
the end.
I might have a go at the
homework though – my own ten lines of poetry made up of one sentence only.
Lots of clauses and commas are
permitted.
I left for home, the twisting single track downwards,
armed with new ideas to try. The world, it seemed was watching either a rugby
game on one channel or a football match on the other. I was abandoning my usual rhyming couplets to
write lists in my head instead.
