Sunday 23 August 2020

Live Session 21st August ~ What matter?

 

These sessions have become a haven of incisive and sensible conversation in a new reality that saps our creative resources. We're having to reinvent ourselves, while all too many institutions insist on reiterating the processes of the old. Giovanna's example summed it up, her kids school insisting on the children wearing tie and blazer when these items are not easily washable, therefore presenting an ideal virus vector.

Our writing prompt came from the Kay Ryan poem Galápago that you'll find in her anthology "The Best of It". I'm afraid I haven't managed to find a copy of it online but you can enjoy some of her poems at this link.

Lou recommended a heartening project called Teach the Future


LOCH LOMOND AHOY!

Yes Water Story writers, at last we are getting OUT! Onto the water... email Bev if you'd like to be added to the list for this trip and arrangements will follow. For social distancing reasons you must please make your own arrangements for getting to Tarbet; be aware there will be stringent measures in place to protect some of our more vulnerable writers.

Monday 10 August 2020

Live session 10th August ~ Slim Boat, look the other way


 

Such conversations were had today, different perspectives on the world changes we are witnessing as we creep out of lockdown. Come out? Stay at home? Like shared guilty secrets we discovered that most of us actually like peace and control of our secluded lives... with this piece Sheila took us swimming in Loch Ard - I don't have a pic so here is the Firth of Clyde:


I stand looking across the still surface

by Sheila Buchanan

I stand looking across the still surface

I feel I can walk on the water

It is so smooth and untroubled

No ripples or splash.

But better to enter the medium

Feel the shock of the cold

See the sunshine enter from above.

As I slipstream face down

The light is split into shards

Vectors pointing to the apex below

I assume the nature of a slim boat

Crossing the boundaries of natures’ curves

Balance is all.

















Our writing prompt today was an attempt to maintain calm, avoid inhaling others' germs, sidestep suffering, find another route....

look the other way

Lou reckoned she'd been looking the other way for so long she has a crick in her neck!


Sheila Buchanan's "Look the other way"

Look the other way and 

Don’t reflect what used to be;

Note what people are doing well

Not the lack of reponsibility.

Let the sunshine in to a spotless mind

No thunder clouds to a trouble a fevered cranium.

Pragmatism and a mindful approach are the tools of the trade.

Keep in touch but don’t touch

Share and air your concerns to absolve your anxiety.

A day at a time 

Don’t let the anxiety be worse that the virus

Look at what an amazing person you are

Life is always blurred at the edges.


To finish we drew various prompts from Cathie Sandstrom's poem

Standing Up in a Slim Boat 

which is, after all, what life feels like at the moment...


In the slim boat of each day

by Giovanna MacKenna


In the slim boat of each day

I travel the lengths of my life


Finding the going rough and tiring,

I forget I am fortunate to be carried


Around my craft splash others, those

who retch salt water from their throats



NB Water Story...

Sessions are moving back to Fridays, starting next Friday 21st August

Keep an eye on the Water Story Schedule page