Hatred: a poem

I led a First Story creative writing workshop today, and we did the Poetry Machine, which generated some great first lines.

Here’s mine, based on “Hate shields you from the rain.”

Hate shields you from the rain,
When you open it.
Usually, it squats in the hall,
Furled like a bat at roost.
When the darkening skies
Split open, I have to run for the
Bus. There’s a spoke missing.
My hatred flaps.
It makes a space, for sure:
Small, private, empty.
But what it doesn’t do
Is keep the wind out.
You’ll still get battered.

Hunger: A poem

 I was running a creative writing workshop yesterday. I usually take part in the exercises, for kicks. Here's a poem that came out of it:

HUNGER
There he is again.
So tiny, to start with.
Flipping a coin, he smirks in the sun.

Under the cracks he creeps,
Tipping his hat, so ruefully,
Brushing the dust off his sleeve.
He squats in the fridge,
Nibbling the potatoes,
Sticking his thumb in the cream.

I let him dance on my table,
Too lazy to banish him.
He uses my fork as a cane.

He’s bigger now: as tall as a
Candle. He yammers, and
Blows out his cheeks.

I put on some toast.
He flickers his tongue.
To end him, you’d have to be dead.

First Story at St Augustine's

I’ve started properly as writer in residence at St Augustine’s, Kilburn. We talked today about abstract and concrete nouns, and how a poem links the two together. We played the surrealist game, which threw up some wonderful definitions:

Revenge is a soft fruit that grows and has skin.
Love makes a big boom.
Humiliation is an L-shaped weapon.
Death is a device to tell the time which ticks loudly.
Guilt is made of sugar.
Jealousy is a large carnivorous dinosaur, or an apex predator.

Here was my attempt at Death:

Death is a device who ticks.
He sits on the mantlepiece,
Kicking his heels. His buttons are
Shiny. ‘I must look smart,’
He snorts, then shoots off up the chimney,
Shifting bones off his sleigh.
Yesterday I saw him on the
Tube. He yanked a man’s hand.
His eyes burned brightly; he looked almost
Holy. You can’t shut the door on him.
He’ll crawl through the cracks.
Root in your drawers,
Steal your toys.
When he’s finished, he’ll shrug, and
Snake off, whistling, to some other
Poor fool, clacking his teeth, and smiling.

First Story Workshop with Caroline Bird

Caroline Bird: Excellent

This year I will be writer in residence at St Augustine's school for First Story, the excellent charity set up by Will Fiennes and Katie Waldegrave. We did some workshops in preparation yesterday with the poet Caroline Bird, in which we wrote poems about abstract nouns.  I don’t write poetry (well, not since I was a teenager and thought poetry meant writing down versions of Nirvana lyrics about blood and hate and so on.) I got "Irritation," and this is what happened.

Irritation

He’s so small he fits into the

Prickle of your eyelids when
You blink. I see him refracted
When I wake. He sits there,
Pleased with himself,
Holding that damned watch
He’s always winding.
Close your eyes, you say.
No good. That gives him
Full permission. Sometimes he does a
Dance, wheeling, prancing piratically.
Sometimes he pulls his baggage along
Rushing for a train he’ll never catch.
You can’t squash him - I tried once,
With a fly-swatter shaped like a
Tennis racquet. He split, calmly, into
Two - then three - pirouetted - and
They built themselves bungalows
In my ear lobes.

A Paean to My Oyster card: First Story Workshop at Pimlico Academy

Oyster Card: give it its due

Through the freezing streets to the fabulous Pimlico Academy for an excellent First Story creative writing workshop. We wrote about abstract ideas linked with concrete places - eg, "The Palace of History", or my particular favourite, "The Sewer of Style." One of the best things that came out of it was writing letters to objects that you use day to day. So we had some brilliant letters to a ruler, a ball of blu-tac, a newspaper trolley, an apple, and a poster. Mine was to my Oyster card, and I liked it so much that I'm going to reprint (as it were) it here:

Oyster Card

Wallet

Upper Right Hand Pocket

Overcoat

7/02/2012

Dear Oyster Card,

Even your name is beautiful to say. Oys-ter. Redolent of the mysteries of the sea, of the beauties of gourmet dining. And with you, all those things are available - to me. I give you my gratitude for all those juddering journeys into town; all those breathless, anticipatory runs up staircases to moments of joy and hope. You are not an inexpensive friend and helper, though; but I don't begrudge you the monthly toll on my bank balance. With you, the world is my - I won't say it.

I won't mention the pearls of London life that are to be found with your elegant guidance. I won't mention the little skip of my heart that I get whenever I press you against the card reader (which, I may confide in you, is mostly because I'm worried that my balance will have run out.) But, dear oyster card - Oystie? - I jest - you are a key, a magic spell, a wonder, a Hermes, a leader into the underworld; but unlike Hermes, you also take us out - which is useful.With you, oh Oyster, the world is - I won't say it.

Thank you for your slimness, for the ease with which you fit into my wallet; for your ability, somehow, never to get lost. For all this and more, I thank you, and with you, the world is my .... lobster.

Yours sincerely,

Philip Womack

Now I hope you all go and write beautiful notes to your hoovers.

First Story: Holland Park and Woodside

A chipmunk: source of inspiration

A brace of First Story sessions this week. First off, in the autumnal heat I headed to Holland Park, where I had a crowded classroom. We worked on the theme of restriction, the idea being that if you impose limitations on your writing, you often come up with interesting things, so we did a few exercises that brought up a lively poem about a curry house and a supermarket scene from the point of view of a chipmunk on a sweet wrapper.

Later on in the week, and still in the skin-warming sunshine, it was back to North London, to Woodside, where we looked at how memory can be used and transformed to make a story. This again resulted in some vivid pieces – the fear of a first swimming lesson, or going on a rollercoaster ride for the first time. Writing comes as much from the self as it does from external factors: that is one of the ways you become a better writer.

First Story: Woodside session, No. 1

To North London, and a visit to Woodside School for a First Story workshop. First Story, in case you didn't know, is the organisation set up by William Fiennes which promotes literacy and a love of writing in schools. The aim is to have a writer go in and do weekly workshops, with the result being a published anthology. It's a great idea, and it's come up with some marvellous things, and I'm very proud to be working for them.

The session I worked on was intended to show that the ordinary can be made extraordinary: I asked each student what animal they would be, and then asked them to imagine finding that animal in their house; then they had to write from the animal's point of view. It was an exercise that drew forth both some rather moving images - hunted lions, hungry hawks, lost monkeys – and some amusing situations as well, with a vengeful snake and a haughty hawk being the most memorable. It was a great session, with a lot of energy, and I look forward to the next ones. The students were motivated and showed real talent and commitment. Now I must go as I think a llama has just wondered into my sitting room... Hey! That's my manuscript! You can't eat that! Sorry, excuse me. I'll be back soon...

Creative Writing Workshop at Greycoats Hospital

Is she happy or not?

To the pleasant streets of Victoria today, for an intense Creative Writing Workshop at Greycoats Hospital school. The school is a large, ancient and pleasant building very near to Victoria Station. It's a girls' school, and I (having arrived late, and slightly flummoxed) was talking to four groups (one after the other) about the basic structuring of writing a story. It was exhausting, but also exhilarating. I talked about the importance of sources - for me the Titian painting of Ariadne and Bacchus as a major point of inspiration for The Liberators. The girls impressed me with their mythological knowledge of Theseus and the Minotaur, and also of myriad other subjects including Romeo (and Gnomeo) and Juliet. Influences as diverse as Slumdog Millionaire, Cinderella and Pygmalion came up (the latter causing some to burst into a rendition of Eliza Doolittle the pop singer). We also talked about how inspiration can be found in the most mundane things - a dead pigeon, a postbox - and the supreme importance of plot and believable characters, as well as the necessity of figures of speech, and the girls came up with some lovely similes. I hope that they took a lot away from the event - in terms of the need for structure, rigour and hard work in the business of writing - and I would like to extend my thanks to the school for the warm welcome I received, and especially to Melissa Hanbury for inviting me.