Poems written by students at The Aconbury Centre

I thoroughly enjoyed my trips to The Aconbury Centre Pupil Referral Unit to join Joelle Taylor and Kenny Baraka who were spending three days with students there. It was great to see students discuss quite mature issues and themes after hearing Joelle Taylor perform her poems. Kenny Baraka was full of sincerity, energy and enthusiasm and he was able to extend the students' ideas and thinking. The pride the students felt in the poems they created by the end of each session was clear for all present to see and it is heartening to know that these students, who often refuse to write, were really keen to show off their poems to other members of staff. Here are two of the poems created by students:

I am a bad man

I see emotions; pain, fire, a black hole.

There’s only a little part of me that’s

happy,

I’ve done wrong.

I’m brave, I’m fearless : no-one can stop me.

A little bubble… that can pop,

I need to stop : make a start.

Hope Brain

Mixed Feelings

A playful dolphin is like

A playground packed with crazy students

A playground packed with crazy students is like

A suitcase loaded with colourful clothes

A suitcase loaded with colourful clothes is like

A child filled with sadness

A child filled with sadness is like

A car with no fuel

By Joy Summers

 

Kay Ryan's Ledbury poem

This poem by Kay Ryan was written and performed during the 2012 Ledbury Poetry Festival to the delight of everyone who packed out the Burgage Hall to hear her read with Bill Manhire.

THE MARKET HOUSE, LEDBURY

Like the bottoms

of the great soft

feet of the elephant

the ancient posts

of the market house

shape to what they

meet.  Each foot

of the market house

cups to its hump of

anchor stone, none

of them purely flat

or round, so that

each English oak stump

took different work to

ease it down.  Like

a patient beast, the

market house has

stood and stood.  The

secret of course was

keeping rot away

from the wood.

Kay Ryan

July 11, 2012

Photo by Kay Ryan

Historic Hellens Manor school visits

Poets Julie Boden and Mandy Ross worked with pupils from Lord Scudamore, Kings Caple, Whitbourne, Lea and Pendock primary schools to write poems in the inspirational setting of Hellens Manor, Much Marcle. We began by warming up our senses before being taken round the house by the excellent Hellens Manor guides, gathering ideas for poems from the tales they told of battles, imprisoned ladies and tolling bells. All the while pondering on how it would have felt to live in this house and to wear clothes like those worn in the portraits. Imagining what stories the timber that built the house or the window of Hetty's room would tell if they could speak. Gathering small details, listening for creaks and noticing smells, our poets also encouraged us to think about the sounds our words were making as the lines of poetry began to emerge. Pupils loved being able to find quite corners of this atmospheric house in which to write and enjoyed sharing their poems around the music room fire. Here are two poems written by Lea Primary School pupils:

The Maid by Elena Bott
I show them what I've made, they don't say thank you well done and I don't even get paid.
I trundle round the castle.
I get no praise.
I know I will be doing this
until the end of my days.
Weary and tired, my
hands red raw, they
are rich and I am poor.
Day and night, I cook and clean.
You never know I'm here, I'm not seen.
I am but a whisper, a breath
on your skin.
I am the thing you fear most,
for I am the maid,
I am Hellens Manor's ghost.

The Laughing Girl by Ingrid MorganI am a lowly street urchin
unwanted, disowned, poor.
An artist took me in one night
Did a sketch once and more
I am no longer that lowly street urchin
I am The Laughing Girl
My luck has finally turned around
I am a painting on a wall.
I've watched hundreds
            As they've watched me.
I am hung amongst the royals,
Even though I am poor.
I've been here for centuries.
I see inside the souls of others.
I am the Laughing Girl
And I intend to live forever!

Exquisite Corpse Poem written during Ledbury Poetry Festival 2012

Our Festival poet in residence, Bill Manhire read this poem at his packed World Laureates reading with Kay Ryan. It was written by particpants at once of his Festival writing workshops, using the technique where people are paired and one writes a question and the other writes an answer, but neither knows what the other is writing. He commented on the uncany way that questions and answers chime. One to try at home!

The Ledbury Variations

Why is Paradise so dark?

Because the fish gather in the evening in the pool beneath the weeping willow.

Is the bride as quiet as she seems?

She is as tall as the sky.

What is Truth?

The capital of Lithuania.

Does the tree always dream of clouds?

I will hang my wishes from a tree.

Do you believe in angels?

I'm polishing my shoes and shining up my buttons.

What's the longest poem you've ever read?

Seventeen billion kilometres from the sun.

How might I compare you to a summer's day?

All mummies are 21 and all daddies are 22.

How much whale blubber does it take to make four candles?

Knead it then leave it to rise.

What do the letters L I B O R stand for?

It means you've been telling lies.

Why do salmon swim upstream?

Because the underground river under my street is nameless.

When will the river burst its banks?

It takes a long time for a tortoise.

Why do they say only the good die young?

Because the stars are looking into our heads.

What the hell do you think you're doing?

Oh, this is a special evening.

Why do the stars keep changing their positions in the sky?

Because the room is too small for me.

Why do I always get lost on car journeys?

Because we don't need medicine.

Are we nearly there yet?

Please stop bothering me.

What would you say if I asked you about your deep past?

A box of six screws makes more noise when rattled than a box of six staples.

Why do people love the moon?

Because when she came to tea, she never took her hat off.

Will the bankers let us join in their picnic?

I think that is highly unlikely.

Margaret Drabble's 'desert island poems'

1. The Thorn by William Wordsworth
2. The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins
3. Elderhouse by Peter Redgrove
4. Timothy Winters by Charles Causley
5. Wintering by Sylvia Plath
6. Home Birth by Penelope Shuttle
7. The Ship of Death by D.H. Lawrence
8. Emily Dickinson poem beginning Exultation is the going/Of an inland soul to sea,/Past the houses--past the headlands--/ Into deep Eternity--

Margaret Drabble's conversation with Peter Florence was fresh, lively and full of interest. By sheer coincidence Penelope Shuttle was in Ledbury for another event, so she came along and read her own poem! Penelope said she had not read Home Birth in years! A real treat.

Interview with Adham Smart

by Ben Norris

This Saturday, Adham Smart is performing in one of Ledbury Poetry Festival’s “20 Minutes with…”slots; intimate sessions combining live readings and informal Q&As where up and coming poets showcase their work. I sat down to talk to Adham about his experiences as a successful student writer with the hope of siphoning some of his expertise and enthusiasm to catalyse the growing popularity of University of Birmingham’s own flourishing creative writing society, Writers’ Bloc.

Born in Egypt and educated predominantly in the UK (currently studying Georgian and Linguistics at School of Oriental and African Studies), Smart is the kind of man who cites learning foreign languages as a “hobby”, alongside writing poetry, which goes some way to explain his proficiency with words.

By the time he was 17, Adham Smart had won the Foyle Young Poets’ Award 3 times (in 2006, ’07 and ’09) and was commended once more, in 2008. But it wasn’t always like this. Apparently, “when I was young I used to tell my family that I hated poetry. Look how that turned out!”

BN: So, how did you go from being apparently apathetic to (or even fervently anti-) poetry to winning FYP 3 times?

AS: I suppose I used to think that I didn’t like poetry because I could never sit down with a book of poetry and read it like I could prose. I still can’t, really, but then, I don’t really think that’s the way to do it. I don’t think poetry collections are designed to be read from cover to cover, and that’s where I was going wrong. I still wrote poetry in school even though I claimed that I didn’t like it, and I enjoyed writing it, so I must’ve just been deluding myself.

BN: The pieces that won you the FYP are all markedly different. Do you feel like you’ve finally found what might euphemistically be called your “voice”, or do you think that writing style constantly evolves?

AS: If anything, I find that I’ve found my style to too great a degree – all my most recent poems sound exactly the same to me! I think there’s a fine line between finding your voice and getting stuck in a rut, which is why I think it’s good to write outside your comfort zone, whether that be by trying new ways of writing or choosing different things to write about. There are even certain words that I’ve banned myself from using because I find that they crop up in almost every poem I’ve ever written! Your style should mutate every now and then to keep your writing fresh, I think.

BN: As Literary Events Officer for Writers’ Bloc, I meet a lot of young writers with an abundance of talent and enthusiasm, but who are somewhat daunted by the world of publishing and/or live performance. What advice do you have for someone trying to make it in the world of C.21^st poetry, and what did you do to successfully get your work out there?

AS: The only advice I can give is probably the same advice as anyone reading this will have already heard: practice makes perfect, and spend lots of money on stamps. Keep writing, and show it to people whose opinions you respect, because they will tell you when you’ve written a stinker, and then submit submit submit. Stamps cost a lot nowadays and it uses up a lot of paper, but it’s the only way. Besides, there are also plenty of top-quality online poetry publications which are just as worthy of your time as any print magazine, and some are set up specifically for young people. I used to help run Pomegranate with other winners of the FYPA 2006 till about two years ago, when other things got in the way, and when I read poetry publications now, I come across names who were first seen on our site. Pomegranate’s in hibernation right now, but there’s still the excellent Cadaverine, and the Young Poets’ Network (not a publication per se, but an invaluable online resource for young writers with worksops and features, and they do publish some things). It’s definitely the case that once you’re published once, it’ll be easier to get published again, so go for it!

20 Minutes with Adham Smart is on Saturday 30^th June from 3:40-4:00 in the Shell House Gallery, Main Street, Ledbury. What’s more it’s free, but there are a limited number of seats, so make sure you book early to avoid disappointment.

Adham is also chairing the 2012 Foyle Winners’ Showcase earlier that day, from 12:45-1:45, in Burgage Hall…also free!

Get your tickets on http://www.poetry-festival.com/bookings.html or by calling 0845 458 1743

Bill Manhire and Kay Ryan by Chloe Garner

As a programmer when I pair two poets together it means I often end up reading their books at the same time as their event approaches. Without really meaning to I begin to view them as a couple! So I have spent time moving back and forth between the succinct and sculpted verses of Kay Ryan to some more rangey and seemingly less controlled poems of Bill Manhire. But then I remind myself that they are not an item and so I am determined to reflect on each, one at a time before they become too intertwined in my head!

Kay Ryan's poems are completely particular, by which I mean that although I am new to her work (and am since discovering how greatly and passionately she is revered by people who do know about her) I now feel I could recognise a Kay Ryan poem anywhere! As I read them they remind me of nursery rhymes. Why? Maybe because they do rhyme and they are playful! Also in the sense that they are so pointed and sharp and contain a sense of fable or myth and actually they do refer back to fairy stories, as in Glass Slippers. Failure is described as "the ribbons stalled approach, the helpless/ red-faced urgings of the coach." Such a brilliant image! I love New Clothes as well. I feel her sagely whispering in my ear when I read, "You will cast aside/ something you cherish/ when the tailors whisper,/ Only you could wear this."

Many of Bill Manhire's poems also grow out of stories, memories, myths, as in The God's Journey in his new collection Lifted. In one of my favourite lines, the puffs of dust of his cart come to resemble "the wings of birds". The poems are by turns humourous and absurd, then dark and monumental and feel truthful to human experience, what we mean to do and how we mean to live and then reality cracking open. "We want/ to sit by the shining lake yet settle/ under the surface of ourselves...secretly real.../ submerged." They play at revealing the crafting of the poem, with crossed out lines left in place so we sense the choices being made or not made or held for a long time in balance. Some poems are very moving as in The Ladder, "And, as you can see, it is rotten. Nevertheless, it longs to be lifted." As we all do. 

I am so excited to have discovered both these poets and am wholeheartedly anticipating their reading together on Friday 6 July at 6pm.