It was wonderful to welcome Alison Craig back into our midst, to work her magic and inspire us in new ways.
Having begun a Masters in Creative Writing last year, she was infused with energy, enthusiasm and new techniques for us to try. She had three objectives in mind: to follow up on the session provided by poet Em Strang, to get us to fill our note books with words, and to find the poet within.
Alison began by encouraging us to ignore the urge to create meaning, order or story in our writing. By ceasing to do so, she believed it would allow our innate inspiration to flourish in unexpected directions.
Our first task was to FREE WRITE – for an unspecified length of time – using a choice of two sentence prompts, without stopping, and ignoring the urge to edit in any way. Afterwards, we discussed how ‘easy’ this felt, if it made a difference using pen and paper versus a keyboard, and the benefits of letting go of ‘intention’.
We then took some time to explore the ways in which the competition theme of ‘loss’ might be interpreted – from the literal to the metaphorical, the external to the internal.
Next, Alison recapped the demands of the competition theme of ‘loss’, focusing on the idea of making our poems ‘sing back’ to us. With this in mind, she read “Do Not Stand at my Grave and Weep”, an anonymous poem, along with two others, from an anthology called BEING ALIVE which, she suggested, were all good exemplars of this essence.
Our next stimulus was a black and white image of winter trees which might be seen as embodying darkness and loss. Juxtaposed with this, was an image of autumn leaves, rich in colour. Alison asked us to consider what the leaves might ‘say’ to the trees, and these images of nature led naturally to the idea of writing ‘en plein air’, to be inspired by the universe around us but at the same time, to focus on something very small (such as a seashell), and its connection to us, which might reveal a personal truth recognisable to others.
This brought us to task number two: listing of as many things we would regard as having been ‘lost’ during the Covid 19 pandemic. From that list, we were to home in on the one which ‘sang’ to us, which resonated the most, and explore it in the form of a mind map.
The final exercise, Alison warned us, was the weird bit: a meditation of body and thoughts, related to our chosen focus, during which we were to ask ourselves questions such as –
- What does it look like?
- What does it smell like?
- What does it feel like?
- Where do you feel it in your body?
During the following five minutes, it was time to turn our thoughts into words. We were certainly ready for our tea-break after that!
Thirsts quenched – and more books purchased from those remaining after last week’s book sale – we were soon ready to flesh out our notes, this time in poetic form, adding ideas as they sprung to mind. Alison encouraged us to read, read and reread, changing our pieces as instinct demanded.
And so, it was time to share!
With each member providing context for their new creation, we listened avidly, asked for re-readings, discussed and provided feedback to poets – such a fascinating and worthwhile experience, especially with guidance from Alison’s wealth of expertise. One ‘trick’ we all loved was to consider what happened to our poems if we chose to read them in reverse.
I can assure you it was an illuminating experience!
Thanks to everyone for sharing so openly, and thank you, Alison, for an excellent evening.
Carolyn O’Hara