WORKSHOP POEMS 4

Yesterday I attended a poetry workshop ran by Philip Gross. It was organised as part of the PlymouthLiterature Festival. I have to say I enjoyed the afternoon and the way Philip ran the session.

As part of the workshop we looked at Wallace Stevens 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. Philip then invited us to write our own series of poems about anything we wanted to.

We then shared it with another person and we were asked to contribute a poem to each other’s sequence. I was working with a talented poet from Cornwall Helen Jagger. 

Shards

I am told it can slow light

-especially if the pane is dirty.

*

This jigsaw

cannot be

reassembled

once the ball

has kissed it.

*

Hard enough to protect your eyes

so you can get the job done,

free from the fear of flying swarf. 

*

Safety Tip

if you have built your house

from this material

do not throw a single stone

*

Heckles white light

Until it sees red

Through to violet

*

Our lives are too brief to see it flow

*

Camouflage

Net curtains work well

But do not

Put on the light

*

Craft Idea 1

wrap those coloured fragments

that are lying around the place in lead

to mosaic that hole in your wall

*

Scousers called their cleaners Sinbad,

as they never cleaned the corners,

Having learned their trade on portholes. 

*

Helen offered:

Are you honest?

Is what you show me

What really is there?

*

You are fickle:

Tell lies in changing rooms,

Bitter truths at home.

Have you guessed yet? I was writing about glass.

Tomorrow sees the launch of Juncture 25’s first anthology. The event opens the Taunton Literature Festival. Perhaps I’ll see you there?