Isle of Wight "Write Away" workshops
Philip Gross, Louise Hudson and Jane Draycott.
Background
"Write Away" is part of an established series of writing weekends on the Isle of Wight. For the summer 2000 "Write Away" proposed to focus entirely on poetry, allowing keen young writers from Years 7 and 8 to work with poets Phillip Gross, Louise Hudson and Jane Draycott intensively for two days. The purpose was to explore new techniques and structures and to take risks with their writing, providing a rare opportunity to write without interruption in a quiet space. Young writers were encouraged to work on their own, away from other prople, in a way which is not always possible in a school environment. At the conclusion they published an anthology called The Spaces In Between.
Emma Beck, Natalie Squires & Jenna O'Connell
Dinner
I regret
to say
I have eaten
your daughter.
I understand
you loved her
but she was
conveniently passing.
Forgive me
she was
such a sweet child
much love Wolfie.
Maria Holden, Archbishop King Catholic Middle School
The Last of the Weavers
I weave blue for water
I weave rainbow for flowers
I weave brown for wood.
I am the last.
My colours will no longer be seen.
I weave grey for stone
I weave love for life
I weave despair for anger.
When I die no one
will have warm, woven clothes.
No one will see
bright colours like me; no one
will understand the weaver's life.
Without me the world will be cold.
Found Sounds
Thunder rolls like hunger,
rooks caw,
doors creak and close.
Silence hums.
Everyone rustles.
Blackbirds break
the silence of the downs.
Someone tries to hide
a wide yawn,
like a letter opening, folding.
Barrels of contraband
rum roll
in the basement.
Held breath.
Silence infiltrates
the cracks
between the sounds.
Listen.
- A Saturday morning group poem from the May Workshop
Holly Keats, Nodehill Middle School
The Pond
Silent water mirrors the world
Needle-like damsel flies
balance on the trumpets of the lily flowers.
Shadows delicately sleep on the bottom of the pond.
Water lilies wake from their winter siesta,
reaching for the hazy plane trailed sky.
The summer splashed pond ripples with life.
-
.
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