One Day?
The first tourists had started to arrive, their cars pulled smugly into parking spaces so early in the day. Later there would be more of them, frazzled, touring the town in search of a space, especially if the weather brightened. But looking out across the bay, at the castle dark against the grey skies, it was hard to imagine the day would brighten at all.
It was hard really to think that another May was already upon them. Before long the little town would be awash with tourists, bursting with excitement and enthusiasm, laden with fractious children, grumbling grandparents and tourist information.
Very soon there would be little time to stare at the view and dream. There would be endless drinks to serve, meals to cook, rooms to clean.
A sudden gust of wind tugged at the bar door, opening it a few inches; just enough to allow in a brief tantalising breath of air, heady with the sweet scent of new mown grass and the salt tang of sea spray. With it came the sound of waves crashing on the shore and a gull shrieking as it wheeled overhead.
A tentative thought surfaced - today, maybe today would be the day to step outside?
Almost as soon as the thought was formed, the wind dropped and the door clashed back on its hinges, clattering the glass in its frame and shattering the dream before it was even properly formed.
Originally written for Crossing the Tees and published as a podcast on www.rachelcochrane.com
Showing posts with label writers group. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writers group. Show all posts
Friday, 14 August 2015
Friday, 27 March 2015
Murder, muses and mayhem; just another week of culture...
This week has been a bit of a cultural marathon.
Tuesday took me to The Royalty Theatre in Sunderland to see their production of Amanda Whittington's "The Thrill of Love" - the story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the UK.
Wednesday was Writers' Group at the library - this week using signs as prompts. Since most of the signs I had hurriedly printed off were the Danger! Warning! type, it's perhaps hardly surprising that they inspired a surfeit of dead bodies...It's fair to say the bloodthirsty members of the group were in their element! Hopefully they will tidy up the blood and limbs and send me some samples for the group blog. (hint, hint writing group people!) Prompts are strange beasts. Sometimes they lead you to theobvious, and other times they lead you a dance bringing you out somewhere unexpected. I thought I was writing a story about high jinx in the chemistry lab but ended up going in a completely different direction with a poem inspired by the growth in a petrie dish.
Saturday will hopefully see me at The Blacklight Engine Room in Middlesbrough. I have no idea whether there will be dead bodies involved in that, but it is compered by a guy called Morbid...
You can read my review of The Thrill of Love here.
Find out what else is on at Arts Centre Washington .
Read more from the Hartlepool Writers' Group at The forms of things unknown .
Comments always welcome.
Saturday, 21 March 2015
A poem a day keeps the word doctor away.
It feels like I am barely out of Post-It Note Poetry and now we have NaPoWriMo.
I struggled to write a poem a day that would fit on a post-it note and now here I am contemplating another daily challenge.
I very much doubt I will stay on target, but I miss the focus of being required to write something. Mr Malone and the rest of the Heugh Writers gang will no doubt laugh...or at least smile wryly at that. Like I managed to even produce a poem a month for that project! But, as I told Martin, it wasn't that I wasn't writing anything, it was simply that I was too terrified to hand over my few meagre words.
Strangely, despite all my doubts, it seems that people like my meagre words. Either that or they are being very polite.
But I digress!
My point was, I need something tangible to focus on. Someone - or something - to say, "Here, Denise, write about this today". And so, for my sins and for the salvation of my writer's soul, I am signing up to write a poem a day. Again.
Lord knows where I will find the time or the words. But perhaps the writing gods will be merciful and send down manna from heaven.
There now follows a Shameless Plug on behalf of the Heugh Writers Party!
I should say, on behalf of the poets from the Heugh Writers, copies of 'To Cross the Wine Dark Wave' are available to purchase from Hartlepool Libraries. A snap at £4 - cheques payable to Hartlepool Borough Council.
Ta very much.
/Shameless plug ends!
And if you're interested in the Post-It Note poems you can read them here https://guerillawriting.wordpress.com
I struggled to write a poem a day that would fit on a post-it note and now here I am contemplating another daily challenge.
I very much doubt I will stay on target, but I miss the focus of being required to write something. Mr Malone and the rest of the Heugh Writers gang will no doubt laugh...or at least smile wryly at that. Like I managed to even produce a poem a month for that project! But, as I told Martin, it wasn't that I wasn't writing anything, it was simply that I was too terrified to hand over my few meagre words.
Strangely, despite all my doubts, it seems that people like my meagre words. Either that or they are being very polite.
But I digress!
My point was, I need something tangible to focus on. Someone - or something - to say, "Here, Denise, write about this today". And so, for my sins and for the salvation of my writer's soul, I am signing up to write a poem a day. Again.
Lord knows where I will find the time or the words. But perhaps the writing gods will be merciful and send down manna from heaven.
There now follows a Shameless Plug on behalf of the Heugh Writers Party!
I should say, on behalf of the poets from the Heugh Writers, copies of 'To Cross the Wine Dark Wave' are available to purchase from Hartlepool Libraries. A snap at £4 - cheques payable to Hartlepool Borough Council.
Ta very much.
/Shameless plug ends!
And if you're interested in the Post-It Note poems you can read them here https://guerillawriting.wordpress.com
Monday, 15 December 2014
Shell Shock
Last week I went to my first poetry reading.
Hang on, you say, Denise has finally lost her marbles. We all know she has been to poetry readings before, in fact we know she's organised a fair few of them herself!
You're right, I have. But this was different! This was a reading for the launch of a new poetry pamphlet that includes me. I stood up - well, sat up - and read words written by me, to complete strangers.
I know!
Steps back in amazement!
Me - the "I am not a writer" person. I have poems (plural) in a book (published!). And what's more I'm in there with proper poets. People who do write, and call themselves writers.
I am, to put it mildly (and not too poetically) a bit gobsmacked. And it is perfectly okay if you all are too!
How on earth has this astonishing thing come about, you cry? And well you might.
For the past year I have been part of a project set up and run by Martin Malone, writing poetry to commemorate the centenary of the Bombardment of Hartlepool in 1914. I have spent a Saturday afternoon once a month holed up in the Heugh Battery on the Headland, Hartlepool, learning about war (and people's reaction to it), and poetry (and people's reactions to that, too). I have in fact spent not much of that time actually producing poetry, much to the consternation of Mr Malone. (If his hair had been long enough to get hold of he'd have torn it out by now).
Martin's idea was to produce a pamphlet of poetry that went to the hearts and minds of the people affected by the Bombardment. Not to glorify the fighting or lambast the politicians, but to document the emotions and reactions of ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary event.
At the time Martin was trying to get the group up and running a few people had said one or two nice things about the scraps of writing I had done and I was looking for a way to develop myself and my writing. Writing about people and feelings was something I was pretty sure I could do, I thought.
But, oh my word it was hard! Coming from a base of inexperience and very shaky self confidence, and discovering such a wealth of talent in that little cafe in the Heugh, I wondered what on earth I was doing there. I felt a complete fraud, sitting among people who could pull words together and create such expressive and poignant pieces. Surely I had no right to be there? But I gritted my teeth, girded my loins and I held the line.
Every month I brought along a scrap of writing, and every month I skulked away with it unread in my notebook. Mr Malone, I am sure, despaired of me. It became a something of a standing joke that I came to a writing group but never wrote anything. In actual fact I was writing, I just wasn't confident enough to share it (imagine that!). In eleven months I handed him three poems and each time I felt sick with trepidation, because surely to god, this four or five lines couldn't count as a poem? And even if it did, it was not likely to be any good...but apparently (to quote another proper poet*), "it was good enough".
In the end, I managed four scraps, handed in at the 11th hour (but not of the 11th day) and probably surprised everyone, but frankly, no-one more so than me.
It's been an experience - a scary one, and a challenging one but a good one. The reading was unbelievably daunting, but the work, read in sequence as it appears in the book, sounded amazing and incredibly moving. I am immensly proud to have been part of it and to have my words included in the pamphlet alongside some right proper poets.
If you are interested in the pamphlet, get in touch with Martin via his website or Twitter, or pop into Hartlepool Central Library where they will be on sale shortly.
http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/local/memorial-day-to-commemorate-the-bombardment-of-hartlepool-1-6944087
*John Hegley - another proper poet who has considered my words good enough.
Hang on, you say, Denise has finally lost her marbles. We all know she has been to poetry readings before, in fact we know she's organised a fair few of them herself!
You're right, I have. But this was different! This was a reading for the launch of a new poetry pamphlet that includes me. I stood up - well, sat up - and read words written by me, to complete strangers.
I know!
Steps back in amazement!
Me - the "I am not a writer" person. I have poems (plural) in a book (published!). And what's more I'm in there with proper poets. People who do write, and call themselves writers.
I am, to put it mildly (and not too poetically) a bit gobsmacked. And it is perfectly okay if you all are too!
For the past year I have been part of a project set up and run by Martin Malone, writing poetry to commemorate the centenary of the Bombardment of Hartlepool in 1914. I have spent a Saturday afternoon once a month holed up in the Heugh Battery on the Headland, Hartlepool, learning about war (and people's reaction to it), and poetry (and people's reactions to that, too). I have in fact spent not much of that time actually producing poetry, much to the consternation of Mr Malone. (If his hair had been long enough to get hold of he'd have torn it out by now).
Martin's idea was to produce a pamphlet of poetry that went to the hearts and minds of the people affected by the Bombardment. Not to glorify the fighting or lambast the politicians, but to document the emotions and reactions of ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary event. At the time Martin was trying to get the group up and running a few people had said one or two nice things about the scraps of writing I had done and I was looking for a way to develop myself and my writing. Writing about people and feelings was something I was pretty sure I could do, I thought.
But, oh my word it was hard! Coming from a base of inexperience and very shaky self confidence, and discovering such a wealth of talent in that little cafe in the Heugh, I wondered what on earth I was doing there. I felt a complete fraud, sitting among people who could pull words together and create such expressive and poignant pieces. Surely I had no right to be there? But I gritted my teeth, girded my loins and I held the line.
Every month I brought along a scrap of writing, and every month I skulked away with it unread in my notebook. Mr Malone, I am sure, despaired of me. It became a something of a standing joke that I came to a writing group but never wrote anything. In actual fact I was writing, I just wasn't confident enough to share it (imagine that!). In eleven months I handed him three poems and each time I felt sick with trepidation, because surely to god, this four or five lines couldn't count as a poem? And even if it did, it was not likely to be any good...but apparently (to quote another proper poet*), "it was good enough".
In the end, I managed four scraps, handed in at the 11th hour (but not of the 11th day) and probably surprised everyone, but frankly, no-one more so than me.
It's been an experience - a scary one, and a challenging one but a good one. The reading was unbelievably daunting, but the work, read in sequence as it appears in the book, sounded amazing and incredibly moving. I am immensly proud to have been part of it and to have my words included in the pamphlet alongside some right proper poets.
If you are interested in the pamphlet, get in touch with Martin via his website or Twitter, or pop into Hartlepool Central Library where they will be on sale shortly.
http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/local/memorial-day-to-commemorate-the-bombardment-of-hartlepool-1-6944087
*John Hegley - another proper poet who has considered my words good enough.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)