The other morning I went along to a poetry workshop, it was the first I had ever attended. Being my first, I was unsure what to expect. This is what happened. …
We met in the cafe of an old theatre. There were seven of us in all; four I had met before, two new and, of course, myself. The workshop was led by Ziggy, one of the guys in a hat.
I had been told to arrive at 11 am. One thing I have noted about poets or poetry events, is that ‘time’ seems to be an alien concept; it was well past 11 when most arrived and nearer 12 when we started.
Ziggy told us what he wanted us to do (I hope he’ll forgive me if I don’t quite recall it correctly here.). He was going to play a gong (but not in a Marc Bolan sort of way!) and he wanted us to observe this. However, poetry is about adding ‘layers’, so he wanted us to think of other experiences that could be expressed. He asked us to observe the gong and to write down 30 words about any other experience we wanted to write.
As I observed the gong, I was struck by images and reflections from the sunlight reflected on the instrument. Sometimes this was just sunlight but, also, at other times it showed colours from vehicles and people passing by. In my mind, this gave me images of travel, of holidays and of having fun.
What surprised me when it came to the writing was just how dark these images of travel and fun became.
As Ziggy played the gong, he did so in various ways, I wrote down the words that came into my mind. These words were based upon the travel theme I had seen and the sound being produced by the gong. I seemed to have used very few of the thirty words I had written earlier (perhaps I should have listened more and done what I had been told) but the travel theme was definitely still there.
The images and sounds I tried to capture in my words were of getting excited about a journey, taking off in a ‘plane, sunlight coming in through the windows of the fuselage, landing and arriving somewhere exotic but then being attacked and stabbed, the plane finally returning without me. See, I told you it got dark.
I will be honest, I was at first embarrassed by this dark twist; it was something unexpected. I did not, at first, want to share my work with the others, not until I could feel happy about this twist. We were given an opportunity to revise, rework and rewrite our ‘poems’. Then, at the end, everyone was invited to read out their work. Although, I was still uneasy about the dark twist in my work, I had come to accept it and was willing to read it out.
Yes, my work was crap compared to the poems created by the other participants, but it was my crap.
Ziggy offered each participant some insights and constructive suggestions. I got the impression he does not like ‘lists’ and he suggested I expand the lines where I had simply listed two or three words. Which, I guess, is fair enough.
I’ll reproduce the latest version of my ‘poem’ at the end of this post. Before I do, I will say that I found the workshop to be really useful, enjoyable and, for a first time, informative. It was also an opportunity to be creative and to attempt my hand at writing poetry for the first time in many years. Would I do it again?
Probably …
Travelling Gong
Head going round, tummy going round, getting ready to go.
Rolling noise like a plane engine taking off
Worry little sound … don’t know from where.
Sunlight shines on one side then the other.
Not there yet, this is the boring bit.
Light dancing across the rims of spectacles, reflections from the windows.
Thinking of arriving; anticipating arriving;
Soon to be getting there.
Exciting excitement as we’re coming down
Excitement building up on landing
Landing somewhere oriental, peaceful.
Warmth vibrant in my body
But unsure, rocking, threatening
Something nearing
Fearing.
Something unknown; mechanical and sharp.
Down, dying.
Doleful, soulful, ‘dong’.
Rolling sounds like a plane engine leaving, returning alone.
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