Fantastic Ekphrastic ...

Oh, how I wish it had been!

Already you know my two day Ekphrastic workshop experience was somewhat underwhelming.  Maybe I didn’t read the publicity properly.  Or perhaps I didn’t do enough research into the person leading the workshop.  Either way, it was all a bit bollocks, to be honest. 

I should maybe have been alerted when I received the programme for the two days and read the phrase: “Psychological Induction for exploring the museum with a poet’s eye”.  Hypnotic Induction is really not my cup of tea and whilst it was not compulsory to take part (and I didn’t) I do rather think people should be told, clearly, what’s going on.  Not have it dressed up in Jungian psychobabble.  But then there was a lot of that!

I also have to take issue with anyone opening a workshop on poetry by denouncing most modern poetry as being largely rubbish and dismissing the use of Free Verse in favour of Iambic Pentameter.  That’s to rather exclude a huge number of work(s) before we’ve even got started, and it’s personal opinion.  And whilst anyone is entitled to their opinion, it’s not especially helpful to express such a proscriptive opinion to a group whose members you don’t know and who were, largely, new to writing poetry or Ekphrasis.  

If this had come from someone whose own work stood head and shoulders above the majority, I might be prepared to give a little more credence to the views expressed.  But I don’t think anyone is going to be offered the post of Poet Laureate by including the phrase ‘satanic mills’ in a poem on Jerusalem, even when referencing William Blake.  And don’t even get me started on the levels of courage and skill required to produce a phrase as original as: “So far and yet so near”.   

So, the first day was a bit of a write off for me, largely due to my own reaction to the psychological induction shenanigans.  It put me in a bad mood.  And I chose to stay there.  Day two, however, was an improvement.  Nothing to do with any real improvement in the quality of the workshop, more my own attitude.  Still, I finally got the poem down about the David Bowie exhibition at the V&A that’s been swilling round my brain since January, so that was good.  And I met some nice people, including a member of the poetry society I belong to (but who hasn’t come to any meetings since the beginning of the year).  That was nice.  And *may* give rise to a mixed media collaboration at some point, which would be fantastically good fun.  If nothing else, I shall go on one of her workshops to learn how to make myself a book!

There’s something about silver linings and clouds there.

Post (Without) Haste

I've been neglectful of posting recently.  (And I'm going on 'Mastermind' next week: specialist subject will be stating the bleedin' obvious!) Thing is, after two and a half years of not working, I went and got a job which has taken up most of my energies whilst I get used to getting out of my bed at some ungodly hour of the morning again, and having a routine!  Still, I'll (eventually) have a salary coming in again, so it's all good.

Anyway, on to the business of poetic ramblings.  Despite the stresses and strains of being a wage-slave again, last week in particular was a high productive week, poem wise.  I knocked out four completely new pieces; finished two poems I've been struggling with for a while; re-jigged two that some nice people at the writing group I go to kindly critiqued for me; and produced something from notes made at a recent workshop on using the second person.  Some of them are even good.  Go me!  With knobs on!!!

More importantly, several of them are not of the 'prancing around the countryside with a flower behind my ear' variety.  My mentor is encouraging me to move outside my safe zone (writing about how lovely the countryside is that I prance about in) and explore one of the other 'voices' that have percolated up: a political voice.

It's an interesting change.  When I'm in my safe zone, I know when I've got something 'good' or at least something that has potential.  Writing in another vein is slightly disturbing in that I don't feel I have any anchors to cling on to, or reference points by which to plot my course.  Still, it's a challenge and one that I'm rather enjoying.

I'm off to a two day workshop on ekphrastics at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, later this week - writing poetry about some of the exhibits.  Obviously, it's something I've done before at Swindon Art Gallery, but the Ashmolean is going to offer a whole bewildering range of lovely things to choose from.  More another day.  Probably.