For our March meeting, we’re delighted to welcome as our main speaker the current Hampshire Poet, Damian Kelly-Basher. With two speakers who are performers, this should be a lively and entertaining evening.
Damian is an experienced spoken word poet who has performed around the UK including Royal Albert Hall, Edinburgh Fringe & WOMAD. He’s also an experienced events/workshop facilitator, running creative events and sessions for people of all abilities and backgrounds.
He’ll be talking about the role of the Hampshire Poet (among other things).
Our guest speaker for the evening will be poet Abanti Chakrabarty Mukhopadhyay. As well as being a poet, Abanti is an academic (focused on education), a radio presenter, web-designer, dancer and performer who speaks four languages.
She’ll be introducing us to Bengali epic poetry — including a dramatic performance.
Damian will be setting and judging this month’s competition, the results of which will be announced at the meeting. Be sure to come along if you’ve entered. If you’re placed, you get a nice certificate (as well as glory).
The meeting will be Tuesday March 11th, at the Tower Arts Centre. Come along from 7:00pm. Talks start at 7:30pm. Members free, non-member tickets £10, students £2 (no advance booking, payment on entry).
Tuesday 10th December 2024 from 6.30pm followed by talks at 7.30pmat the Tower, King’s School, Winchester.
It’s an opportunity to meet, network and chat to authors and members of HWS.
Authors from the HWS will be displaying their books at the Book Fair along with an indie publisher. Come along, meet them and show support for fellow writers!
Jean G-Owen
Jean G-Owen, our guest speaker on the evening, her talk entitled ‘From Conception to Compilation: Publishing a Poetry Collection’. She will be promoting her new poetry collection, The Pain of Glass.
NAKED FIGLEAF PRESS, founded by Jean G-Owen in Summer 2023, is an indie publisher based on the Isle of Wight. They specialise in poetry, novellas, short stories and non-fiction collections. They publish The Figlet, a bi-annual literary magazine showcasing Isle of Wight writers & illustrators. Naked Figleaf Press host Yarnival West Wight WordFest. xhttps://nakedfigleafcollective.co.uk/publications/
Anne Wan
Anne Wan, children’s writer and independent publisher, and author of the Secrets of the Snow Globe trilogy and picture book, Manners Fit for a Queen.
Anne began writing when her middle son became ill. As he convalesced she helped him transform an idea that he had, into a book. This ignited her enthusiasm for writing stories for children. She started writing picture books as a hobby and went on to study creative writing with Barbara Large. Anne is passionate about inspiring children as readers and writers. She enjoys giving talks, craft and storytelling sessions in schools, libraries, and Brownie groups.
Having completed the Snow Globe trilogy, Anne released her debut picture book Manners Fit for the Queen. In this humorous story, Hector causes chaos with his terrible table manners. His sister, Isobel, has found her own way to cope with the mess. But how will she cope when they are both invited to a tea party with the Queen?
Secrets of the Snow Globe – Menacing Magic is the finale to my ‘Secrets in the Snow Globe’ series. Chaos rages in the world inside the snow globe following the theft of seven, magical, diamond snowflakes. In a race against time, Louisa and her brother, Jack, shrink into the globe and embark on a perilous journey to catch the thief. Can they retrieve snowflakes before the snow globe world is destroyed?
Secrets of the Snow Globe – Vanishing Voices Can they succeed in their quest to help their new friends, and find a way back to Grandma’s house? A captivating adventure story of courage and friendship for 7-9 yrs. In a land of magic, snow, and secrets Louisa and her brother, Jack, are flung into a dangerous mountain adventure when they shrink into their Grandma’s snow globe.
Secrets of the Snow Globe – Shooting Star
How much does Grandma know about the snow globe’s magic? Louisa and her brother, Jack, are determined to discover the truth. In this sequel to, Secrets of the Snow Globe – Vanishing Voices, Grandma’s story is revealed. But how much should she tell? After all, some secrets are best left untold…
Martin Kyrle was at Agincourt – not the battle, but at the official opening of the museum. His personal travel anecdotes – all of them true – span seven decades and will take you off the beaten track even if you’re familiar with the countries where they take place.
Islands off the coasts of France, Holland or in Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest lake, castles in Estonia and Latvia, lakes in Lapland, Lithuania and Siberia, Roman amphitheatres in Libya, Neolithic dolmens in Brittany or monastic ruins 8 miles out in the Atlantic off far SW Ireland. Then being hospitalised in intensive care in the Canary Islands or facing a Force 8 gale on the ferry from Hong Kong to Macau and a total blackout in Mongolia when the lights fused..
Finding soldiers bivouacking in his back garden prior to embarking for the Normandy Landings (but who hadn’t been told!), then trying to get to school during the ‘great freeze’ of 1947 contrast with exploring Mycenaean tombs in Cyprus or volunteering in a refugee camp in Austria and a workcamp in Poland. Hitchhiking round North Cape at the top of Norway was quite tricky, too. [Why go? Well, it’s the northern limit of Europe and if you go any further you fall off…].
He had to mind his manners when, as a Sub-Lieutenant in the Special Branch stationed in Malta to decode top secret communications, the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Lord Mountbatten, invited him to dinner. At university in Southampton a contrasting challenge was singing a duet from La Bohème in front of a couple of hundred disbelieving fellow students who’d sneered that although he and his fellow artistes could sing Gilbert & Sullivan they couldn’t sing ‘real’ opera. After that, getting lost on a train in Western Bosnia, being locked in a church in rural Devon or standing with your school party watching your train from Germany into Denmark depart without you were minor misadventures you took in your stride.
He ascribes his good fortune and possibly survival to having been blessed by the Pope in St Peter’s Square in the Vatican in Rome, by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Kremlin in Moscow and by an indigenous Buryat shaman in Siberia who gave him a lucky charm, which you might think is hedging your bets for someone who’s a life-long atheist. But perhaps they saved him when he had to overcome vertigo when standing on the top of the leaning tower of Pisa and when, 10,000 feet above the South China Sea on a flight to Beijing with his late wife, the pilot announced that one of his engines was showing signs of failure.
Martin Kyrle’s Little Green Nightbook, Little Blue Nightbook and Little Orange Nightbook each has 25 personal stories to intrigue you, with flags, maps, colour photos and cartoons. His other books, Jottings from the Trans-Siberian Railway and Jottings from Russia and the Baltic States. Part 1: Russia and Estonia.
Page Dalliance
Page Dalliance is a writer, editor and designer who became an author by chance. Having lived in and around the New Forest and the Test Valley in Hampshire for most of her life, where she married and raised her 3 children.
During this time she developed a design career and a thirst for knowledge, not present in her early school days, and consequently put it to good use in her future projects and exploits to improve her lifestyle. Always up for a challenge where an opportunity presented itself, these were probably stepping stones for later adventures as a single woman where choices had to be made and calculated risks undertaken.
This debut novel is based on the experiential events witnessed on her later travels when dipping her toe in to the tepid Greek waters for the first time at the age of 50 plus and then consequently ‘pushing the boat out’.
Further publications are planned featuring design and building challenges both at home and abroad.
Her new book, A Perfectly Respectable Pirate, a novel set in Greece is based on a true story.
Clare Fryer
Clare Fryer, YA author, her book, The Invitation.
Clare grew up in Guildford surrounded by books. She was inspired to write by her father, who was a poet and author himself in his spare time. Clare doodled poetry throughout her life, yet yearned to write novels but never had the time. When Clare took early retirement in 2022, she finally had time to write. The Invitation began as a short story inspired by a writing prompt and won a monthly writing competition. Her mother and several friends asked what happened next, and so she began to write. That short story became the first three chapters of The Invitation.
One invitation changes everything. The arrival of a mysterious invitation on the eve of Millie’s sixteenth birthday sets off a chain of events that will change her life forever. A family linked by secrets discover a darker, more sinister undercurrent of corruption in Anacadair. How far will the ruling High Council go to preserve the old ways? When the family flee, who can they trust? Will they escape from the watchers?
Mark Eyles
Mark Eyles’ science fiction books ‘Icefall Cities’, ‘Firedrift Moon’, and ‘Stellar Megastructure’ (graphic novel) are available on Amazon. A fantasy novel will be available soon.
Previously, he was a hippy, punk, teacher, entrepreneur, freelancer, holographer, videogame designer, company director, lecturer, and researcher. He’s been published in 2000AD, Sonic the Comic, and Fear magazine.
Damon Wakes will have his collection of published books available, includingTen Little Astronauts – An Agatha Christie-inspired murder mystery novella set on board an interstellar spacecraft.
Damon writes everything from humour to horror and produces a brand new work of flash fiction every day during July each year. Damon also writes interactive fiction and games, and provided the story and dialogue for Game of the Year nominated virtual reality title Craft Keep VR.
Order and Chaos, an anthology from Breakthrough Books that opens with one of his flash fiction pieces. That story is “Songbird and Statue,” which also provided the anthology’s theme.
Ancient gods in conflict and a zombie on welfare, a disappearing boyfriend and AI with daddy issues, a balloon bound for icy danger and a mysterious theft at the museum, a sinister woodland cabin and a pleasure house that’ll cost much more than you can afford.
Raiding parties in dystopia, art classes in the city, opposites attracting and love catching fire. Separations and siblings, life and death decisions, flying into trouble and traveling to self-discovery…Which comes first, chaos or order? The cycles between may seem inevitable, and change may be the only constant, but what does that mean for the human experience?Sixteen authors from the Breakthrough Books collective explore our relationships with nature and technology, science and the sacred, each other and ourselves, offering an array of stories as individual as every reader.Ten Little Astronauts— a novella published by Unbound.
RED HOUSE TO EXODUS is a memoir by Di Castle who was born at Harpenden Memorial Hospital (The Red House). Set in Harpenden, it spans the 1950s and 1960s – a time of great social change following the Second World War. It includes her home experience, early schooldays – the local infant school’s undesirable outside toilets, and the headmistress travelled by bus bringing her cocker spaniel Andy, who slept in a basket under her desk. Grammar school was followed by secretarial training. She then worked as a medical secretary at Luton and Dunstable Hospital and later at St Albans City Hospital. The author has used research of the 1950s and 1960s to place her life in context. From starting school, the Festival of Britain in 1951, the Coronation in 1953, milk and coal delivered by horse and cart, moving house, numerous pets – rabbits, a tortoise, budgies, even a mouse! She and her sister entertained themselves with skipping ropes, Jokari, hopscotch, a den made out of runner bean canes and hessian sacks used for coal delivery. She left Harpenden after her marriage (Exodus)
Author of 31 Treats And A Marriage and The Interview Chain
Lynn Farley-Rose spent her childhood by the sea in Devon and then went to university in London. She spent some years working as a research psychologist before a move to East Sussex resulted in a complete change of lifestyle. At one point she was responsible for the welfare of thirty-two animals and eight species including her four children. 31 Treats And A Marriage was her first book and arose out of an interest in ways to cope when life throws up challenges. Her second book The Interview Chain is an exploration of connections between people. She now lives in Hampshire, has no animals and is working on her third book. In her regular blog at treatsandmore.com she writes about topics of general interest from a popular psychological perspective.
31 Treats And A Marriage
From Austen to Brown—a giant table in Liverpool to hidden churches in London— New York to Edinburgh—and cannibalistic spiders to a horse named Twilight—
When Lynn’s family seemed finally to have overcome a series of disasters, and her husband was at last in recovery from cancer, she thought it was time to focus on recovering herself. She decided to have some treats—not frivolous material things but exploratory, enriching experiences. Then life threw up a new obstacle and she found that the problems weren’t over. In fact they were about to get much worse—and suddenly the treats became something far more; they became a lifeline.
The Interview Chain
Everyone has something interesting to say if you take the time to listen. The Interview Chain is a series of conversations—each interviewee was asked to nominate someone they admire as the next link. Starting from a casual conversation on a boat on the Thames, the chain wended its way for over 23,000 miles, alighting on three continents and gathering up personal perspectives on issues that really matter in the world today. The interviewees include a theatre director, a rabbi, a philanthropist, a sculptor, a New York Mayoral candidate, a pioneering documentary maker, and a man who rescues giant trees. Some have worked in challenging places—Kabul under the Taliban, a Romanian orphanage, immigration detention centres, remote Indian villages—while others have found themselves caught up in extraordinary situations such as the Rwandan genocide, the Ferguson uprising, and the UN Climate Change Negotiations.
Sally Howard & Maggie Farran
Three writing friends, Sally Howard, Maggie Farran and Catherine Griffin from Chandlers Ford collaborated on a new project in lockdown, culminating with publication of Winchester Actually. Unravel the intrigue of the great train robbery. Witness the thrills and spills of rioting through the streets. Wonder at sacrifices made to save the cathedral and defend the city. Enjoy gentler tales of romance and motherhood set in and around Winchester.
Dai Henley
Dai retired in 2004 following the sale of his local businesses in Southampton and Winchester. He joined a Creative Writing class which he still attends weekly. He is also a regular visitor to the Hampshire Writers’ Society.
He writes crime dramas with the themes of obsession, revenge and justice. He’s attended many murder trials at the Old Bailey. The capacity of ‘ordinary’ people who become motivated to carry out extraordinary acts never ceases to amaze him.
He received wonderful reviews and won several awards for his debut novel, Blazing Obsession: a silver medal from The Wishing Shelf and a Top Ten place in Bookbag’s self-published novels in 2014.
His novels: Endless Obsession; Reckless Obsession; and Blazing Obsession will be available at the book fair and are also available in paperback and eBook on Amazon. To find out more visit his website: http://www.daihenley.co.uk
Stephen Hodgson
Stephen Hodgson, children’s writer with his book Tales of Helen and Lysander: A Spartan Girl and Boy. Stephen was born in Yorkshire but have lived most of his life in London and Hampshire. He worked in the Civil Service for 35 years but left in 2022 to try his hand at writing. He also works part-time in a local school. The Tales of Helen and Lysander is his first novel. It is the first in a series of novels which will follow the characters on their journey into adulthood.
Welcome to the world of Helen and Lysander, a brother and sister in ancient Sparta. It is the eve of their 7th birthdays and the following morning they are set to enter one of the world’s harshest training programmes – the famous Spartan agoge. Helen and Lysander will have to overcome hunger, pain and injury in a series of extreme challenges to survive in their new world. But Helen and Lysander do not face these challenges alone. They have help from Pylos, a helot or slave boy, who considers Lysander to be his only friend and who quietly helps them at key moments. He does this at great risk to himself and to Lysander and Helen; for it is forbidden for Spartans and helots to be friends.
Antosh Wojcik describes himself as a poet, drummer and sound designer. He has joined us this evening to discuss Creative Fusions: Collaborative & Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Writing.
He begins by saying that some people are “quite nervous” about the idea of collaboration and he conducts a quick straw poll of how many of us are frequent collaborators with our writing – the vast majority are not. For some people it is simply because they are not presented with the opportunity to. Antosh points out that he is speaking to a room of writers and yet we do not collaborate with each other. He explains that for him, collaboration helps him prepare for what he describes as “brutal” rejection letters.
His talk this evening, he tells us, looks at how collaboration can enrich the writing process and its product, and explores what can be unlocked within our writing by exploring fusions with practices and approaches from other disciplines. He shows us a slide, which demonstrates his three “collaborative forces,” labelled as his “Artistic Oscillation.” His three forces are sound, text and time – something which he promises to expand upon later.
Antosh explains that he has five mediums: Writer / Facilitator / Producer / Drummer / Sound Designer. He became a writer when he studied creative writing here in Winchester, where he gained a passion for poetry. Of his drumming, he says, “… it is very physical and it takes you out of your direct space.” He goes on to say that, “I don’t think too much when I drum.” He explains that all these mediums began to interlock.
Whilst he emphasises that the collaboration of writers is not necessary, he urges those of us who do not collaborate to consider why. He then shows a slide listing the many collaborations with which he has been involved over the past 10 years. Antosh “threw himself”into any opportunity he could and as a result met many poets and musicians and other artists. He explains that he did this because he “wanted to avoid definition.” He quotes from poet Inua Ellams who asks, “What is your cage?” Antosh asks us to consider what our cage might be – for example, is it writing in a three-act structure? What is it that is preventing us from where we want to be?
He quotes from another writer, Natalie Diaz who said, ‘I think creativity is a trap. I tell my students, call it tension, not creativity’ (Antosh interjects; “I just sabotaged my own title there.”). He goes on to suggest that there is tension when we work creatively, regardless of medium – including his talk with us now, (“Tension is in everything.”). Therefore, he says, he began to realise that “I’ve just been seeking out tension for a decade.” He then shows us another slide:
“Collaboration & multi-disciplinary approaches are means to create useful tension for your practice.”
Antosh goes on to explain that collaboration is about “…play, failure … [collaboration] diminishes and empowers responsibility.” He continues that collaboration is often “initiated by curiosity.” He urges us to encourage and protect that curiosity.
However, we are warned that collaborations can be risky and they do sometimes fall apart, (“more often than they don’t, I’d say.”). Antosh cautions that collaborations can make us vulnerable and we have to trust those with whom we are collaborating. Disagreements create tension, which has to be negotiated and “you need to know you can handle that interaction.” This includes people such as editors and agents. We have to be able to develop “resilience.”
Antosh exemplifies his definition of tension, by reading us one of his poems (to rapturous applause) and then asking us where we think the tension was (answer: when he came out of the performance momentarily to ask the audience a question, thereby creating a moment of improvisation – and an unpredictable response from audience members).
We are introduced to the concept of a “game-poem” (a game that is equal part poem / a poem that is equal part game). The result being A Lake in America which Antosh created in collaboration with Joel Auterson. The player selects a poem and then rewrites it according to the limitations of its form, using collaborator codes and sound design. The player then tests and releases it. Antosh reiterates the importance of trust and vulnerability when working collaboratively and how these elements are an important part of a successful partnership. He also explains how there is a limit to how much control one has when collaborating and all parties have to be able to accept that. However, working on A Lake in America in turn led to other collaborations.
When asked about the use of AI with his work, Antosh explains that he would rather work without it as he likes the possibility of things going wrong – the human element to it. Although, he expresses that AI does have its place.
He presents us with a slide containing images of soundwaves – sounds that he has created and then turned the waves into visualisations using software. On looking at the images, which he describes as “beautiful,” he explains how he began to play with the images – for example, turning one onto its side. He was inspired to use these new shapes as a form or structure for a poem. Because sound is “physical”, the waves can be used to give different shapes and meanings. “These shapes can inspire … ideas in themselves.”
Antosh moves on to talk about his drumming. He begins this section of the talk by explaining a narrative he created about his Dziadek (his Polish grandfather) who had dementia which affected the way he spoke. He explains that the dementia manifested itself in a very physical way, which he found very interesting. Antosh tells us that he wrote about this at the time “in order to process it.” To highlight and explore the physical side of his grandfather’s condition, Antosh used his skills as a drummer – as drumming is a very physical process. He explains, “…drumming is a way that I could basically, instinctually reflect Dziadek’s experience.” This taught him, he says, not only about dementia, but also how art forms can express a variety of things.
This work led to a project entitled Seder – a Jewish ritual held at the start of Passover. This demonstrates, he concludes, that working with one art form can often take you down avenues that lead to another art form.
Antosh’s most recent art form and collaboration is film. He is in partnership with Xenia Glen – a Filipino film director with British heritage. Xenia has an invisible disability, symptoms of which are brain seizures. She wrote a narrative exploring what would happen to an undocumented person who has a seizure and was sharing a house with other undocumented people – a story based on Xenia’s own experiences. Antosh highlights the contrast between Xenia’s story and his own, describing his background as being very “protected.”
“If you can ever get into a duo … I highly recommend it because you can have opportunities to try and draw stories from each other.”
Antosh finishes his talk by discussing the idea of tension with time (“I’m in tension with time right now,” he says as he rushes to finish,). However, he reminds us that time away from a project “allows us to incubate it.” He adds, “Collaborations with other people allows us to accelerate it [time].” He also reminds us that when we put effort into something that has not worked, “It is not wasted time.”
His final point is that we are already in collaboration – with texts, with experiences, with each other. He ends with a quote that sums up the subject of his talk this evening:
‘So here, you see the ironies of history; history mocks us. It shows us that the things we thought people suffered in the past –they’re still in front of you. It says, you think you are writing about the past; you’re really writing about your future. In a way, though, history helps you see that everything and everyone is connected…’ Najwan Darwish
Members were very lucky to have two adjudicators for our January 2024 competition – our two speakers Dr. Kane Holborn and Antosh Wojcik. A wonderful new challenge was introduced by the poets in the form of ekphrasis. Both were very generous with their time and thoughts throughout the adjudication and feedback process.
Ekphrasis definition: the use of detailed description of a work of visual art as a literary device.
Introducing the task, Antosh said: “We’re going to broadly approach this type of writing. I see ekphrasis more as ‘creating a new piece of work from an existing work’ – so this prompt is slightly broader than the definition of the process.”
A detailed brief was provided as follows:
You are invited to write and submit an Ekphrastic piece of prose fiction, poetry, non-fiction or short essay.
Choose three works of existing art. They can be from different artists or the same. They can vary in medium – you could choose a song, a painting, a film etc.
Write a piece that draws from all three works.
You could use the piece to comment on the works.
You could write in response to the tones or the atmosphere of the pieces.
You may choose figures within the work to narrate or feature within the work.
You may derive settings from the soundscape/landscapes presented.
You may use the three pieces as transitions – i.e. Vignettes drawing on each work, poem sequences etc. All approaches welcome.
300 words for prose. 10-20 lines for poetry.
Antosh and Kane were both extremely generous with their time and thoughts on their winning entries. Both were agreed on the top three, but each chose their own highly commended recipient.
And the winners are…
First Place: The Piano Has Been Drinking at the Fountain in the Garden of Earthly Delights by Syd Meats
Second Place: Roche Court bySamChristie
Third Place: I am Iago by Geraldine Bolam
Kane’sHighly Commended: Bedlam by Sarah Standage
Antosh’sHighly Commended: Please Do Not Propose by Francesco Sarti
First Place: The Piano Has Been Drinking at the Fountain in the Garden of Earthly Delights by Syd Meats
Delightful, leaping, irreverent verse! The poem reads as though we are shot through the ages of contemporary art, explosive and riotous with its explorations of image and undercutting of those images. The title does its dues to set up the concept and tonal resonance of the ensuing piece. I clapped upon reading. A riot of a read, superbly composed, well done!
Antosh Wojcik
I feel as though I’m in a gallery, observing sculptures and paintings as I read your work), (in particular, The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymous Bosch) and this feeling emerges from the word go. Your poem mirrors the vigorous activities taking place within the painting. You throw image after image at your reader, assaulting their senses. From the juxtaposition of freezing rivers and cities on fire, you continue your fanciful poetic assault into your second stanza, not even giving us time to breathe. And this was what drew me back to your poem. Sublime madness at its finest! Methinks you are a Surrealist painter in disguise, masquerading as a poet. Job well done.
Dr Kane Holborn
The piano has been drinking, it staggers through its nightmare
from the left side of the triptych, where the duck-head man is reading
to the music of the buttocks played by instruments of torture.
And it frolics in the garden, riding unicorns and donkeys,
feeding strawberries and cherries to the bathers in the lake.
And the rivers are all freezing on the far side of the water
and the cities are on fire,
and the water is a bloodbath, and the rabbit bears a stretcher.
And the piano has been drinking in the stomach of the tree-man
and the giant bird-head monster makes a feast of all the corpses,
and the demons need urinals in the shape of Duchamp’s Fountain.
The piano has been dancing its four-legged wooden waltz.
And you can’t find your artwork at Grand Central Palace
and it hates you and the gallery, and you can’t find the toilet
and the porcelain’s an artwork and R Mutt has signed his name,
and the newspapers are scathing, and the critics have retired.
The piano has been drinking, it’s a sculpture ready made.
The urinal has been drinking, not me, not me, not me, not me, not me.
Second Place: Roche Court by Sam Christie
In any ekphrastic work, a sense of place can be a powerful writing tool in conjuring the ekphrastic and you have eloquently framed your experience of a visit to Roche Court supremely well. I especially loved the way you brought your poem to a close as this is often a delicate space to write within. But your trio of rhetorical devices offered me a refreshing perspective which brought your poem to a satisfying conclusion. Bravo.
Dr Kane Holborn
A playful, dazzling poem, balanced in its introspection and leaps into the abstract!
I love a bold opening line; ‘They say I’m a sensation…’ It does the work of lighting the fire for the reader when the title is so quiet. What follows is this deftly considered, musical verse that purposefully drifts into the various named works and sensations.
Antosh Wojcik
They say I’m a sensation,
Though now I walk down from the ha ha
Following Richard Long’s bone flint Tame Buzzard Line,
Tapering towards the second life oak.
In the Orangery my work hangs
Among a tinkle of glasses and low frequency reverence.
These canvasses are not of the grey ashtray weep of Mosul,
But the proud, infinite Nineveh Plains.
I’m shoulder to shoulder
With van der Beugel’s DNA squares.
Though my code is in sand and the rumble of F15s,
His has settled as glass gallery reflections.
Belonging
Rolling green
Do they need me with them
As living, breathing context?
Am I also the art
As well as the artist?
Third Place: I am Iago by Geraldine Bolam
It’s wonderful to read a work that is confident in its fusion of form! Part-essay, part-poetic-prose, part-review, the reader is invited to navigate these various figments of Iago and reflect on the core themes of Shakespeare’s great work. I think it’s innovative to reach to such a text and bring its context into different life/light through the work you have selected and the vignette form gives this piece a sense of fluidity through time. I recommend building further on this work!
Antosh Wojcik
This piece is an interesting beast of creative writing because it treads many grounds in terms of genre. Is it a poem? Is it something else? I didn’t know. At times, your poetic lilt bled into the realm of review and, subsequently, nonfiction. But your piece was refreshing in that it had no discernible genre.
From ceramics at the V&A to Oliver Parker’s adaptation of Othello, you push the envelope and broaden the dimensions of your piece whilst maintaining your central theme: inspiration from the visual in a variety of forms.
Dr Kane Holborn
I am Iago. I am the mastermind of plot and subterfuge, the fulcrum at the centre of Shakespeare’s play. The Bard has given me immortality and my character has been endlessly speculated upon, my motives fully considered. “Demand me nothing” I had said. “What you know you know.” With the passage of time, I can be more helpful, but let art be my voice and your guide.
Let us start by looking at a piece of ceramic sculpture. The piece is Iago and Othello by Cyd Jupe. It is figurative, a wall piece of stoneware crank and red iron oxide. We are depicted as human heads, and I am whispering in Othello’s ear. It is a typical moment that captures our precious trust and intimacy. It reminds me of the time I discussed with Othello “Green Eyed Jealousy” and seeded some wisdom. Now let us consider a film.
How about Oliver Parker’s adaptation of Othello? He places me as a central witness to the action. There I am situated behind doors, peering into scenes, or hidden, all the while watching. The Director is masterful, look at the ingenious use of the chessboard anchoring my vital role. Some might say that it is Othello and Desdemona who are the chess pieces here and that I am the master operator. That is for you to decide.
So let us move on and try Othello the ballet by the American Ballet Theatre and the San Francisco Ballet. In one pivotal scene, we are returning from battle and the sailors are stretching and attaching ropes in preparation for docking. There are two groups of rope but within each group, tangles, and twists till they form an absolute web.
What I know about webs or being caught in one, I understand little, but I can say that the music is cleverly composed. The notes do not follow a straight line either but are equally discordant, complex, and twisted. I am simply entranced.
Kane’s Highly Commended: Bedlam by Sarah Standage
I am a lover of poetry that leaps off the page and which is up the wall, and your work certainly achieves this. Your engagement with Louis Wain’s psychedelic cats is quite evident through your zany use of language. I enjoy how the theme of mental health is mirrored against and through Wain’s visual work as an ekphrastic device within your poem, which enlivens the themes at work. Bravo!
Dr Kane Holborn
A kaleidoscope of vibrant red, bright blue, xanthine yellow
cuts a scanned slice of neurological matter
or
Louis Wain’s cat?
Disappointment, fear and fury
picks up the razor
severs his ear
paints a self-portrait.
Strabismus dwarf squats
midst the Bruegel-type landscape
as the patricide axeman
advances through the melee.
Genius or madman?
Creative talent oozes while
Incarcerated in the asylum of the brain.
Antosh’s Highly Commended: Please Do Not Propose by Francesco Sarti
Antosh’s Highly Commended: Please Do Not Propose by Francesco Sarti
I was really taken with this work of flash fiction, which drops the reader so carefully into a considered, almost spiralling moment for the narrator. The works that influence the text are neatly embodied, even though they are disparate, the structure of the piece holds and draws such interesting colours and imagery from the art pieces. A quiet, vulnerable storm of a piece. Well done.
Antosh Wojcik
Inspired by: Casa Batlló by Antony Gaudi (Building), The Hateful Eight by Quentin Tarantino (Film), The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson (Picture Book)
We enter the liquid corridors with squeaky shoes, rain bouncing on the scaly flooring, and this UNESCO World Heritage Site, this marvel of wavy walls and whirlpool ceilings is my refuge from a snowstorm, deep in the mountains, carrying a convicted murderer waiting to be hanged. We go up, almost floating, submerged by the tropical windows like schools of poisonous fish. Jody is in a rush to get to the dragon-like roof; but I delay him. I linger for unbearable stretches over the seahorse-shaped doorhandles and the azure crystals of the elevator’s buttons. That roof seems designed to spill blood. Blood can channel through the dragon’s ribs and tail, flushing inside a building with no straight lines, no corners, flowing freely over every feature better than a Roman aqueduct. Once on the roof, how will I know if someone’s hiding under my feet? Someone ready to snatch a shot from below—a deadly angle—right when I’m most vulnerable? As we ascend, like bubbles in wine, I remind Jody of his former girlfriends. The allergy-prone fox. The tired owl. The starving snake. He says our love would scare them off. But now I look at him: a grey, small, innocent mouse who survived a snake, an owl, a fox, and I wonder what he sees in me. I wonder if he’s got a pathological fascination with terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in terrible jaws. I stare at this tiny rodent getting on one knee, right on the back of a dragon, on top of a house made of oceans, and I am terrified.
Poetry can be found everywhere. Something Joan McGavin made quite clear in her presentation at this month’s Hampshire Writers’ Society meeting.
An assignment for the Creative Writing PHD, centring on the study of Phrenology, had her trawling through a rather large collection of death masks! The masks are the property of the Hampshire Cultural Trust and it is believed were owned by the surgeon at HM Winchester Prison whose father was Giles King Lyford; Jane Austen’s doctor during her final illness.
Pre-dating photography, some of these masks are the only remaining evidence of what the person looked like. They led Joan to question our everyday issues and, when borrowing one, to witness and note the effects it had on passers-by. The death masks often look so strange because the subjects have had their heads shaved so as to show the shape of the skull more clearly.
“With no hair, they tend to look even odder!” Joan says.
Still, when discussing poetry, we like to pigeonhole it.
Two of the masks inspired particular poems – the subjects both executed for murder. The first was used in an exhibition of the subject in Edinburgh’s Anatomical Museum. The Second featured on a ‘poster presentation’ at an archaeology and anatomical sciences-run conference at the University of Southampton this year, called “Skeletons, Stories and Social Bodies”.
Enjoy and just before you go; a note from Joan: “Don’t have nightmares!”
Baby Face
Death Masks
Even his name’s too cute,
too childish –
John Amy Bird Bell –
to suggest a murderer.
And here’s his death mask:
complete with eyelashes
and almost dimples,
especially on his right cheek;
the skull shaven
for the phrenologist’s hands.
I read somewhere
about “flaxen curls”.
He was fourteen years old.
It’s said he was brass-necked
throughout the trial,
admitted he’d stabbed
the boy a year younger
in woods near Rochester,
for the three half-crowns,
a shilling and sixpence
he was carrying home to his father.
John’s brother was look-out,
got the shilling and sixpence
as his share of the loot.
Even his name’s too
monosyllabic.
Looking hard at this
cherubic face,
the lips not quite beyond
a baby’s pouting,
the eyelids closed as if
in needed sleep,
I’m convinced that all
I would have wanted to do,
were he alive,
is give him a hug,
some bread and scrape
or a toy diabolo.
To see it you must cradle it up
and out of its bubble-wrap swaddling
into the room’s light
where you’ll compare the marks left
by damp or age to plaster become skin
broken out in a rash,
to lichen flowering over rocks
and wonder at the detail in the moulding:
eyelashes, facial hair, evidence of how death
was met – the rope-mark that collars the neck.
Posed on its smooth, round plinth
where a name once was but now
a lighter-coloured patch marks the place,
the face remains anonymous.
You catch yourself glancing past,
see the person in the background
doing perfectly ordinary things
or you’ll start talking to it,
carry it round in your arms,
gash crimson onto its lips and line with kohl
its closed, blank eyes,
Maura Dooley has published several collections of poetry, most recently Life Under Water and edited verse and essays including The Honey Gatherers: Love Poems and How Novelists Work.
Maggie Sawkins won the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry 2013 with Zones of Avoidance. Her two poetry collections are Charcot’s Pet and The Zig Zag Woman.
Special Guests: Isabel Rogers, Hampshire Poet 2016 and Hugh Greasley, local poet and ceramicist.
Mingle and meet poets amongst many other writers on Tuesday 11 October 2016. The evening will incorporate a short AGM which will start at 7.15pm
P&G Wells Book Stall with books available for sale
Wine, soft drinks available for purchase from 7.00pm
Barbara Large welcomed everyone to the first talk of the new HWS season and said how pleased she was with the numbers of people who had turned up; and that we had a super night ahead. Barbara welcomed Joan McGavin, the Hampshire poet, and Santa Montefiore, the novelist.
Joan spoke about the Winchester Poetry Festival, which is to take place between the 12th and the 14th of September. Friday begins an exciting and varied programme that will feature Slam Dunk Hants, a student showcase, Hogwords, Hampshire poets now, and the main reading comprising Imtiaz Dharker, Matt Harvey, and Brian Patten.
Sunday will feature a city walking tour with sites of special interest, The Wilfred Owen International Poetry competition, and “Poets from Hampshire”, Edward Thomas. Also, “Things being Various”, Christopher Reid on the poets craft. There is a Commemorative Reading in Winchester College War Cloister, and the Main Reading will be Ros Barber and Jackie Kay. There are also a number of workshops and competitions. Saturday will feature Young Voices; Zena Edwards and friends, “The Singing of the Scythe”, the best of World Poetry, “So Too Have The Doves Gone”, the poetry of conflict, and “Telling Tales, Patience Agbabi. There will also be “New Voices”, Liz Berry, Olivia McCannon, and Jacqueline Saphra, and “Those Timeless Things”, the poetry of John Arlott. The main reading comprising David Constantine, Julia Copus, and Michael Longley.
Joan encouraged us all to try writing poetry, and offered a tip: if you are getting “poet’s block”, try writing some prose. If getting “writer’s block”, try writing some poetry!
David Eadsforth then introduced Santa Montefiore:
Santa was born in Winchester and grew up in Dummer, Hampshire. Due to her mother being Anglo-Argentinian, she was able to teach English in Argentina for a year before taking a degree in Spanish and Italian at Exeter University. She went back to work in Buenos Aires for some years before returning to Britain and marrying historian Simon Sebag-Montefiore. Her first novels were set in Argentina and Chile, but many other countries have now provided the settings for her books.
Santa started by wishing everyone good evening and saying how delighted she was to see so many people. She was not going to deliver a lecture about how to write, but would like to recount what had inspired her writing over the years. Santa said that locations and settings were very important in her books. She found the greatest inspiration from the places she had visited. Smells can be very evocative; Buenos Aires has wonderful scents from the flowers, and caramel from the sweet stalls – and diesel fumes from the buses. Santa has visited everywhere she has written about, apart from Polperro, which was the one bit of Cornwall she couldn’t make, but she was able to construct a satisfactory picture from the internet and other references in the end. (This was our secret, and we were not to let on…)
Santa started writing at school, where she created stories for her schoolmates. These were romantic, but were not drawn from life as the only specimens to hand were spotty schoolboys; not a very suitable model. Later, however, she did manage to include one character from real life from her school, a schoolmaster who was Scottish but who affected an Italian accent. One day, he invited Santa and a couple of her friends to his home for afternoon tea (unlikely to be allowed these days…), and on a tour of the house threw open the bathroom door to reveal the bidet, where, he announced proudly, he liked to “boil his botty”. He did become a character in one of her books! Another teacher, who was a very large lady, actually wanted to become a character in one of her books. Santa obliged, and then worried about what the teacher’s reaction would be. The teacher loved her fictional character so much that Santa wondered if she had actually recognised which she was.
Then there was Bernie, the family Saint Bernard, who would be let loose at the end of a garden party to herd the last of the visitors away. On one occasion, a lady appeared to be indulging Bernie by letting him press his sticky jowls on her suede trousers. However, when Bernie followed his “new found friend” around a corner he got a kicking for his pains. A lesson for Santa; people who like animals are generally nicer than people who do not. That lady turned up in a book as well, as did an early Argentinian boyfriend of Santa’s. Argentinian men are supposed to be darkly good-looking and courteous, but this one was not. A very controlling person, he would even check that Santa had used the soap after having visited the bathroom; the “soap-checker” also went into a book.
The great thing about putting nasty people in books is that they think that they are so perfect that they never recognise themselves. Santa has noted that people who have been scarred by life’s experiences will quite often have an unattractive persona, and it can take some effort to find a more likeable nature beneath. Santa also liked older people, and the slightly eccentric views they often hold. She hoped that such eccentricities were not dying out but might be constantly maintained by people who, as they age, grow less inhibited and less likely to continue to follow convention. Santa said that her novels do, of course, introduce the views of her characters, which may or may not reflect her own views. However, many people believe that a view expressed in a novel must reflect the view of the author, so care must be taken.
Writing at the same time as your husband can be problematical if both of you like to write to music. Santa creates a playlist for each new book as it helps create moods and emotions. Typically, this would be something wonderfully evocative of the location she is writing about. At the same, “Ground Control to Major Tom” would be belting out from the next room. Even though “Major Tom” may now be played through earphones, the problem has not gone away; her husband has started singing along to it – rather badly…
A noisy environment can be dispiriting. At the time she and her husband lived in a flat, a yuppie couple lived in the one above, and would often put their washing machine on late in the evening. One night, Santa’s husband decided to tackle them about it, so went out, in pyjamas and dressing gown, only to meet an elderly lady from another flat intent on doing the same. They knocked on the door together and were confronted by their puzzled neighbour. They explained that it was really too late to be running a noisy washing machine and Santa’s husband added that the offending machine was “right above their bedroom and they had a baby only one year old”. Their neighbour’s eyes went from one to the other in growing incredulity…
Santa believes that the writing room should be a beautiful place to work; it should invite and inspire you, and for her this means flowers and candles etc. Her advice is: “Make your office your sanctuary – a room you long to get to every day”. This will help you get on with the writing process. Following the advice of her husband: “don’t get it right, get it written”, her method of working is to write the book from start to finish before revising; if you go back over what you have written and revise as you go, you will make appallingly slow progress.
Santa happened to meet Joanna Trollope about the time she had finished her first manuscript, at the age of twenty-five, and asked Joanna for advice. “Put it in a drawer until you have had more experience of life.” was the reply; wise, undoubtedly, but not terribly welcome! But Santa has indeed found that the older you get, the better you write.
After Santa had been published, a US book tour did not work out quite as planned. On one occasion, Santa found herself in a bookstore in Chicago, ready to address an audience. She was quite fired up by the news that Isabelle Allende had pulled a crowd of three hundred there a short while before, but when Santa entered the room there was only one man in a baseball cap, sitting at the back reading a book: and not one of hers. But with her belief in the “stiff upper lip” she approached the man, quite prepared to devote the session to him. Unfortunately, he was only there waiting for his family to return from shopping. However, Santa did manage to have a chat with him long enough to sell him a signed copy of her book. Lesson: Americans are only interested in big names. However, this story says a lot about the kind of fortitude everyone needs to become a successful author!
Her book tour experiences are quite different in the Netherlands, where she is very well-liked and draws large audiences, and can almost feel like JK Rowling (if one ignores the difference in royalties…).
Santa then took a few questions.
Does Santa relate to her own characters?
Yes, indeed, but she also writes about characters who she knows she won’t relate to. This is very difficult, but often quite necessary; and a particularly challenging part of writing fiction.
What is her production target?
Santa is happy with writing one book per year. She has to maintain this schedule to satisfy the publisher, and on completion of a book often wonders if she can write another – but she has always managed to do this so far! If she ever found that she could not keep up with the demands of writing, then she would probably give up.
When in the early stages, daily progress will be 1-2,000 words. In the later stages, she will be writing up to 5,000 words per day; once the narrative has begun to progress, the writing comes easier. Santa has a disciplined writing year. She only writes in term-time, and hands her completed manuscript to her publisher in July, just as last year’s book is being published in hardback. She takes the summer off then, in September, she goes through her editor’s notes for her finished book, and makes the necessary changes. During this time she will begin planning for her next book, which she starts writing in January, the manuscript being ready for the July deadline.
What would Santa liked to have been if she hadn’t become a writer?
A singer: recalling her time in Argentina, she projected herself as singing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” from the balcony of the Shakespeare Room where we were all sitting. And ultimately . . . a teacher – which was the right thing to say as the questioner was herself a teacher! Both Santa and her questioner were keen to emphasize how much there is a ‘performance’ element to teaching, and to writing and public speaking as well.
Any advice on how to end a book?
Santa acknowledged that endings are often very difficult. But, as a rule of thumb, if you find you’re getting bored with the story or book you’re writing it’s best to end things quickly (or even move on to another project). This discussion of book endings was a natural place at which to bring the Q&A part of the evening to a close. Santa rounded everything off by telling one last story – a rather explicit, but highly amusing, story – about the difficulty of getting some anatomical details right when writing about the opposite sex . . .
To conclude the evening, Barbara thanked everyone for coming and invited them to “keep writing” and to “bring a fellow writer” next time. In October, we would have Andy McDermott, the thriller writer, so it would be worth coming back.
Brian Evans-Jones works as a full-time lecturer of creative writing, teaching both for Winchester University and the Open University, and has held many writing workshops at the Discovery Centres in Winchester and Gosport.
Brian of course is no stranger to the HWS. He was a guest speaker in April 2012 when he described his work as the Hampshire Poet Laureate for 2012. During his term of office he developed the popular ‘Writing Hampshire’ website, mapping the county through poetry.
Brian’s Adjudication:
Before Brian gave his adjudication, he read aloud Hazel Donnelly’s entry for April as a tribute to a very talented writer who will be greatly missed. Those members and friends who wish to give donations to Asthma UK can find details on this blog page.
The first criterion Brian used to judge the entries was whether they were true blank verse. Blank verse is poetry written in regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always iambic pentameters. Unfortunately, most of the entrants didn’t follow the brief. Brian said that he had to put those that did follow the guidelines ahead of the rest.
Clive & Sue
1st Prize: Sue Spiers, Wiping the Slate Blank
This poem builds steadily to a really excellent ending – a final stanza that rises and rises in quality to a knock-out image in the last line. The impression left by just that stanza was easily enough to make it a strong contender, but it also does the technical side of blank verse well, and has plenty of memorable lines along the way.
So can you tell me what went through your mind
about the crash that crushed your cranium
at eighty miles per hour into a wall?
What made you risk your life and loss of limb?
A surgeon drilled the holes to make some space
for swollen tissue, limbic gland damage
that makes remembering the time too hard
and leads to rage or disruptive changes.
Medulla responses keep heart and lungs
in rhythm. Motor skills; finger to thumb,
some words to name your wife and basic needs.
The slow recovery of smile and frown
at appropriate times as you discern
correct responses. Wonder how you look
to other patients, do the scars stand out?
The ones you hold inside and can’t recall.
In dreams you grasp what consciousness restrains.
The man who hovers in the corridor;
that want-of-death was stronger than her love,
than frontal lobe perception of her faith.
2nd Prize: Sue Spiers, (pseudonym Lillian White) The Everywhere Woman
Although the iambic metre sometimes wobbles in this poem, the quality of the observation and the images are very good. The experience the woman is sketched out with precision and moving understatement.
She’s seen and unseen, an old crumble-sac
who everyone thinks they know but never
saw before. Her face is familiar
and easily forgotten. The white hair –
a trademark nobody recognises.
More passive to bland into the background
behind the loud and strident women who
demand attention, she sits in her skin,
occasionally smiling and nodding,
listening intently to the voices
rising above her own mouse-beige whisper.
She remains mute for her own amusement,
content not to contend ‘don’t I know you?’
One minute here then gone like a shadow
at midday whose shape you’re sure you recall
but can’t bring to mind, an outline that’s made
of mist. She will never be missed or mourned
for long but thought of as a dear old kind
you often met but can’t remember when;
the everywhere woman without a name.
3rd Prize: Clive Johnson, The Dancing Floor
This was the best entry in terms of getting the blank verse technically right. It presents a nightmare dance with images that are fun to decode.
Before a conflict that would scar me and
Destroy so many lives, I dreamed each year
I entered different rooms until I reached
The last, a fearful place of sacrifice
As yet unknown to me, inside a hall,
A dancing floor where flappers and their beaux,
The damaged of the first war and their friends
Unheedful of the next, tripped to a beat
That might have been a devil’s dance, the make-
Up on the women’s faces devils’ masks
That stirred in some a superstitious awe.
The partnering – a frantic sport to vie
For men among the suitors that were left –
Might be a satyr’s ritual to them.
It would enrage their forebears and provoke
A band of witchfinders to prick our skins.
Instead, a new and heartless creed beset
Us with its notions of normality.
We caught a fever in that long weekend
That spread from age to age to addle us.
Highly Commended: Jenny McRobert, Quill
This poem is a sensitive interpretation of Jane Austen’s craft. Its best images, such as the ‘corseted words’, are surprising at first but then come to feel ‘right’.
Highly Commended: Rebecca Lyon, Fossils
I like the understatement and restraint in this poem. It gives the feeling that beneath the apparently simple statements of each line, something of much greater significance in hidden, like the fossils themselves.
The prizes were copies of Fleur Adcock’s poetry, together with a signed Certificate of Adjudication.
In Conclusion: The competition secretary, Jim Livesey thanked Brian for the splendid job he did in adjudicating the April entries and presented him with a small token of our thanks.
Barbara Large opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and reminding us that the purpose of the HWS was for all of us to learn to write to ‘industry standard’. Our membership was growing and now included many people from outside Hampshire, in fact from West Sussex to Dorset.
Barbara welcomed Fleur Adcock and Julian Stannard, the speakers for the evening, and then introduced Dr Stephen Wilson, Trustee of the Poetry Society, and Brian Evans-Jones, who was to be the competition adjudicator for the evening. Barbara then invited Judith Heneghan to talk for a few moments about the upcoming Writers’ Festival. Judith outlined the main schedule, which would comprise a series of workshops, talks, and courses over the period of the festival: Friday to Sunday, 20-22 June, 2014. There would be opportunities for one-to-ones with literary agents and publishers, and Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat, would be the keynote speaker. Free events would include two book launches on the Friday, and there would be an “Open Mike” session where new work could be introduced. On the Friday, poet Rhian Edwards would be present, as would Sathnam Sanghera. There would be many other literary figures attending, including Julian Stannard on the Sunday. She reminded everyone that full information could be obtained from the festival website: www.writersfestival.co.uk.
Barbara then announced two very sad events, the deaths of Keith Bennett and Hazel Donnelly.
Keith had been a great champion of young writer’s poetry, and had managed the Tesco-sponsored National Poetry Day competition, which had resulted in 850 entries from the three age groups: 6-11, 12-15, and 16-18. Keith had written comments to the entrants on all 850 entries, which had indicated his enthusiasm and commitment to the event. Keith, a probation officer by profession, had passed away at his desk. All contributions will go to the British Heart Foundation.
Hazel had been a great supporter of the HWS and sadly had passed away after suffering an asthma attack. Hazel had won several of the monthly competitions and, as a tribute, Brian would read her entry for April.
Dr Stephen Boyce then spoke about the Winchester Poetry Festival. Stephen explained that he came to poetry late in life, but had now edited two collections of poetry which were being published by Arrowhead Press. The Winchester Poetry Festival had been the brainchild of a group of poetry enthusiasts who had noted that while there were a number of poetry festivals in Britain; St. Andrews, Ledbury, Aldburgh, the “south coast” was not represented. Thus the Winchester Poetry Festival had been born, and would take place 12-14th September, 2014 at the Discovery Centre. The group of trustees had raised £40k. There would be three strands: WWI, Poets with a Hampshire connection, and contemporary poetry. Stephen gave examples of some of the activities; Patience Agbabi, author of a modern rewrite of the Canterbury Tales would be present on the Friday, and there would be a poetry slam. On the Sunday there would be a commemorative reading of WWI poetry, with poems from Britain, France, Germany, and Russia. On the 14th of May, there would be a big preview event at the Discovery Centre, and the band “Epic” would perform three thousand years of poetry in sixty minutes. The aim is to make the festival a biennial event. Full details are to be found at www.winchesterpoetryfestival.org.
Fleur and Julian were then introduced, and in turn read a number of their works, which were under the heading of “Travels in Poetry”. Fleur, bravely continuing despite being afflicted by a bit of a cough, read a number of poems which reflected her personal experiences. “The Saucer” was a poem about sighting a flying saucer which she had started and then returned to some years later. “Alumni Notes” was a poem addressed to a friend, and “Charon” asked where the ferryman was when he was most needed. Fleur took a well-earned break and Julian took over.
Julian Stannard & Fleur Adcock
Julian began with a poem to his first father-in-law, Bruno, “Bruno Cuts My Hair In A Place Called Ether” which recalled Bruno’s talent as a barber. “Horizontal” made the remarkable link between the French poet Rimbaud and a green wheelie bin. “September 1939” about the day war broke out, “I’m Homesick for Being Homesick”, about dressing up in an assortment of hand-me-downs before taking the dogs for a walk. “The Blessing of the Octopus at Lerici” recalled Julian’s time spent on Genoa. There were also poems about lunch: “Lunch with Margot and Tinker”, “Lunch with Alex and Mildred”, and even “Lunch with Fleur”.
Fleur then returned to read “The Royal Visit” about the royal visit to New Zealand she witnessed in 1953, and “Slaters”: an interesting species of arthropod. At this point, Gary took over to handle questions from the attendees. There was, naturally, interest in how Fleur started her career in poetry, and she replied that she had always been fascinated by poetry from a young age, and had started writing in earnest by the time she reached adolescence. The more she read, the more she wrote. The question was also asked as to what time of day was the most productive for her, to which the answer was early morning or late at night; being half asleep seemed to trigger the creative process. In answer to the same question, Julian remarked that inspiration always occurred at a time when he was not carrying a notebook. However, sparks often began to strike when in conversation.
The question came up as to what would poetry be like in two thousand years, to which Fleur replied you could also ask what it would be like in ten years. In answer to the question “Do you follow a theme?” Fleur’s reply was yes; the years her father spent running a farm in New Zealand. This had inspired a recent collection which was now with the publisher. And if Fleur was “inspired by places she had lived in” what did she think of modern Britain? Fleur replied that some thoughts were not publishable! Julian also responded to the question, and said that living in Southampton provided most inspiration; especially Shirley High Street, where gems such as a goat butcher and 1970s pubs were to be found, with the distinct possibility that, at one end, the end of the world was likely to be encountered. Brian asked Julian if place names meant something just to him or were they also intended to affect the reader. Julian replied that it was always nice to mention place names; very self-satisfying, and the readers seemed to like it.
Fleur was asked if writing poetry was natural, or did she have to work at it. Fleur replied that the more she did the more easily it came; one was always thinking and refining. To finish the session, Julian read Fleur’s “Smokers for Celibacy”, an Ogden Nash’ish appraisal of sex which pretty well brought the house down.
Barbara closed with some comments about the next two meetings; James Wills, literary agent, in May; and would people please email their questions for James in advance so that as much material could be made available for him prior to the event? Lady Carnarvon would be the speaker in June, where the venue would be Chawton House, and the usual strawberries and cream would be available, as would an area for people to bring their own picnics. Finally, Brian mentioned that he had a workshop in plan for Saturday the 26th of April, 10.00 to 16.00, for which there were still places.
Funeral of Hazel Sara Donnelly
Family flowers only please, but donations in Hazel’s memory to ‘Asthma UK’ would be gratefully accepted.
Links to a gift aid form and to Asthma UK can be found below:
Alternatively, if you wish to do this online and therefore make the Gift Aid element slightly easier, please visit this link: http://www.asthma.org.uk/Pages/Appeal/#
‘Write a Soliloquy for a Dramatic Character in Blank Verse – up to 20 lines’
We were pleased to welcome our adjudicator Dr Mark Rutter, a lecturer at the University of Winchester. Mark is no stranger to the HWS: founder members might remember him as one of the ‘Three Poets at Work’ at the December 2011 meeting. As well as being a poet he is active as a visual artist and fiction writer, and also a member of the British Haiku Society and the Haiku Society of America.
Mark’s Adjudication:
1st Prize: Celia Livesey (Pseudonym Joanne Ward) Soliloquy of One of the Trolls from The Hobbit
‘I enjoyed the use of an unconventional, “unpoetic” voice in this poem. A lively and original poem.’
I could’ve been anyfink – yes I could,
There’s loads of jobs an’ fings at wot I’m good.
I could’ve been a chef; it’s not my fault
They don’t like stew with slugs and lots of salt.
I could’ve been Pri-minister, but then
I’d ’ave to learn to write and spell – an’ it’s
All very well, but with snot on my chin
My image was wrong – I’m not even thin!
It’s tasty though, snot is, so I don’t care,
But I’ve got a feelin’ that life ain’t fair.
I tried to be an astro-nut, they sent
Me into space, but the helmet gave me
Allergies – an’ bumps all over me face.
I could make it big on telly, but I’ve
Always bin too smelly – but trolls can dream.
Now rooted to the spot, and turned to stone,
Far from the Misty Mountains, far from home,
I curse that Bilbo Baggins, he really
Is to blame, for since the sunshine hit me
I’ve never been the same. An’ that’s a fact!
2nd Prize: Robert Brydges Lines from 1594
‘I liked the way the poem managed to pack in a great deal of literary history and speculation about authorship without sounding like an essay. The rhythm never becomes bogged down and sounds convincingly like a voice.’
Wm. Sh: Blank verse, you say? I’ve had a go. My lines
Plod carthorse-like uphill: ka-PLONK-ka-PLONK.
But Marlowe’s soared! We heard his Tamburlaine,
In High Astounding Terms, defy the gods!
(He went to Cambridge, Kit did – not like me).
He’d had a string of hits, then – odd, this was –
He asked to ghost some Histories in my name.
Of course I see it now: he’d always planned
To ‘die’ and go abroad! Well, can’t complain;
I take the credit, so I keep the cash.
His Muse was killed in Deptford though, and now
He’s mostly doing chick-lit – that and farce.
He’s gone from writing Faustus and The Jew
To The Comedy of Errors and The Shrew!
Love’s Labours Lost! I ask you! Poppycock.
The man has lost his mojo. So perhaps
The brand of ‘Shakespeare’ needs another ghost?
Like Thomas Kyd? Or better still – George Peele!
A butcher’s feast of vengeance, rape and blood;
Say –Titus, for a title? That’ll do.
3rd Prize: Gwen Hobbis Dionysus Ponders the Cuts
‘This just struck me as an original take on the subject of the cuts, both amusing and to the point.’
I would never have believed it. The government’s last decree
on austerity. It applies to us deities too. Cuts all round.
I, Dionysus, God of wine, how can I make cuts? See,
perpetual raving and more. It’s here in my job description.
I scarcely can make merry on vin ordinaire or breakfast tea.
And then there’s Zeus with his mighty thunderous boilings,
and Poseidon too. Must he also curb his awesome rages?
Are their displays to be confined to blustery showers
and volcanoes which erupt in well controlled displays?
Ares, God of manly courage, war and bloodlust,
Will his tumult shrink to mere argument and fracas?
As for Apollo, God of archery and music, I trust he won’t be asked
to cope with only peashooter and maracas.
Pluto, God of this world’s hidden wealth, he should be aware
the underworld of darkness is at risk.
And Hera, Queen of marriage, women, childbirth, must reject
pressure to downsize to hasty assignations or one night stands.
And so Zeus, King of Gods, I hope he’ll tell them ‘Nuts, it’s mere mortals,
the little folk, they are the ones who always get the cuts.’
Highly Commended: Sally Russell Tom’s Turmoil
Highly Commended: Sally Russell Demise of a Family Man
The prizes were signed copies by Ros Barber of The Marlowe Papers, and a Certificate of Adjudication signed by Mark Rutter.
In Conclusion: Our thanks to Mark for his adjudication – very much appreciated by the winners, and to all our contestants, 19 competition entries received in all – a tremendous response.
Water and edited verse and essays including The Honey Gatherers: Love Poems and How Novelists Work.
Sunday will feature a city walking tour with sites of special interest, The Wilfred Owen International Poetry competition, and “Poets from Hampshire”, Edward Thomas. Also, “Things being Various”, Christopher Reid on the poets craft. There is a Commemorative Reading in Winchester College War Cloister, and the Main Reading will be Ros Barber and Jackie Kay. There are also a number of workshops and competitions. Saturday will feature Young Voices; Zena Edwards and friends, “The Singing of the Scythe”, the best of World Poetry, “So Too Have The Doves Gone”, the poetry of conflict, and “Telling Tales, Patience Agbabi. There will also be “New Voices”, Liz Berry, Olivia McCannon, and Jacqueline Saphra, and “Those Timeless Things”, the poetry of John Arlott. The main reading comprising David Constantine, Julia Copus, and Michael Longley.
Santa started by wishing everyone good evening and saying how delighted she was to see so many people. She was not going to deliver a lecture about how to write, but would like to recount what had inspired her writing over the years. Santa said that locations and settings were very important in her books. She found the greatest inspiration from the places she had visited. Smells can be very evocative; Buenos Aires has wonderful scents from the flowers, and caramel from the sweet stalls – and diesel fumes from the buses. Santa has visited everywhere she has written about, apart from Polperro, which was the one bit of Cornwall she couldn’t make, but she was able to construct a satisfactory picture from the internet and other references in the end. (This was our secret, and we were not to let on…)
The great thing about putting nasty people in books is that they think that they are so perfect that they never recognise themselves. Santa has noted that people who have been scarred by life’s experiences will quite often have an unattractive persona, and it can take some effort to find a more likeable nature beneath. Santa also liked older people, and the slightly eccentric views they often hold. She hoped that such eccentricities were not dying out but might be constantly maintained by people who, as they age, grow less inhibited and less likely to continue to follow convention. Santa said that her novels do, of course, introduce the views of her characters, which may or may not reflect her own views. However, many people believe that a view expressed in a novel must reflect the view of the author, so care must be taken.
