Tag: nottinghampoetryfestival

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Literature Nottingham Uncategorised Women’s writing

And then there was change so profound, I stopped.

I have remembered that I have a Blog! In looking at it now I cannot believe it is two years since I attended to it – two COVID-ridden world years that is. Those good intentions in January 2020. Looking back, my words seem quite visionary themselves, discussing survival and the need for changes…

The fact that I have only just returned says something about how the Covid pandemic impacted. Yes, I have been writing, but in frantic bursts as if my life depended on it, as a record of events, messages of hope and desperation, songs of love and calls to arms. The measured daily writing I had planned seemed unattainable, as just when the dust settled and some semblance of normality appeared on the horizon, we were told we must retreat into our homes and await the onslaught. Somehow poetry is now a vein that connects me to my only source of sustenance and I react to the ebb and flow of creativity whenever I wake from my hibernation, before slumping back into the body which craves a cocoon against the uncertain seasons ahead.

All of which is a way to admit, no, I have not written a poem a day, nor submitted once a month. I am holding on to this world in any way I can , just as we all have to try and in doing so I find a deeper connection with the natural world, with the poetry of everyday .

I will write more over the coming months about what I have been up to, but just wanted to note that creativity lives, it thrives and it sustains us all. In these really hard times it may be all we can cling to.

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Write Like A Girl

Write Like A Girl is an art project being run by the talented Helen Cross. Helen is the author of novels, stories, radio plays and screenplays. Her first novel, My Summer of Love, won a Betty Trask Award and became a BAFTA award winning feature film.

Workshop no 1 was held at a Networking Venue, Sneinton Market. Great venue, except not on a February winter’s day when the thin glass veneer surrounding us makes it feel like we are stuck in a snow globe with no hope of movement. I did not remove my gloves, not even to write. This though was the only frozen aspect of the afternoon. Everything else served well to fire us up and get the creative temperature rising.

We assemble around the plain tables, all eager to write and to explore our heritage. Nottingham has, we learn, got some famous women writers to match the much lauded men in talent, passion, output and sales. Yes, these women were feted in their day, they changed things and had their voices heard. There is even a living black woman, Panya Banjoko, who speaks to us all through her poetry. Come on Nottingham, recognise these women, read these women and remember them!

Over the next months we will be congregating to consider these authors in more depth:

Susannah Wright b1792

Mary Howitt b 1799

Dorothy Whipple b 1893

Helen Cresswell b 1935

Panya Banjoko,  contemporary.  

Inspiration is just around the  corner, in this case quite literally as Sneinton Market is not far away.

woman lying on green sofa
Photo by Pedro Sandrini on Pexels.com

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A poem for the Brexit debacle.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

All In A Daze.

We file into the chamber- more debate
Egos have blown up in our red faces
Leaving Europe come what May, oh too late,
Emperor’s clothes are missing, your Graces
Naked truth confronts wicked lies of men
Power grabbers set the country ablaze
David did it with one stroke of his pen
Long hidden and run away from our gaze
No choice now but to make a decision
A land divided needs strength, seeks vision.

Gail Webb

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com