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Regular news and insight from our many poets, writers, educators and facilitators

02 October 2020

Posted by Susmita and Hiba Chader

A new term begins...


We are so happy to be back at Mayflower Theatre, after having to move to sessions over the Lockdown period. Everything felt the same, but also not the same. Social distancing, being aware of and complying to all the safety guidelines meant we had to adapt our sessions but it was still so great to see people in real life. This week, I'd like to welcome one of our young writers, Hiba Chader, to do a guest blog post for us. We are really excited to work on 2 Mayflower 400 related projects by Art Asia and Audacious with exciting outcomes for both these projects. I'll share the links below. Over to Hiba now: 

where do you belong? 

Hiba: So excited that on Saturday 26th September, we had our first young writers club! It was a big change seeing faces of people I had only ever seen on camera before. Some were familiar faces and some I had never seen before sitting socially distanced at different tables, but still feeling like we were together, finding out more about each other after every exercise.

Susmita stated the session by asking us questions that got a lot of us thinking about where we belong and who we are – making us think carefully about our past or maybe even our present. We created a mind map that had some really great points, but we were all missing something, something that brings everyone together regardless of your race, age or culture -can you guess what it is?

FOOD! We all love food and it can be a big part of who we are and where come from and where we belong. Whether it was something delicious you ate at an important event or simply something simple eaten at the beach. No matter where you were or who you were with, one thing that you know was that there was definitely food there! And it can define that moment and embed it into your memory or even your core being.  Food can mean many things to different people, like comfort and sanctuary or that time your dad burnt the cookies or when you spilled ice cream all over your cousin - it brings back memories. It reminds us! The taste, the smells, the feelings – all this from the food that we eat! 

Food can even be a part of ourselves and our very fabric and this can vary great person to person and place to place. It was so interesting and inspiring to create our poems about the food that means something to us. I loved creating my poem about Mahajab – an incredibly delicious Algerian street food eaten warm with honey on the hot sands of the gorgeous Algerian beaches with the warm Mediterranean sea lapping at my toes, surrounded by family! Can’t wait to hear everyone else’s food poems next session!


Thank you Hiba for your wonderful blog post.


Here are the links to the workshop resources we did:

Belonging poem

Writing your own Kenning Poems

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