19 October 2020
Posted by Matt L T Smith
Today we’re looking at imagery. We start by reading from Paul Takes the Form of A Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor, paying close attention to how Lawlor characterises Paul as a shark, how he “had to keep moving.” We reflect on Paul’s shark-ness and remark about the scariness of sharks, the predatoriness, when we realise that actually “we’re being pretty mean to sharks.” “Sharks just do what they have to do.”
We look at the poem alleyway by Aziza Barnes and how their images hold both a softness and a visceral quality in juxtaposition, from “Sometimes I want to eat my breasts down to their bitter rind and spit them out” to “the pair of heels darting from us in dull claps sharpening against the concrete as teeth against a stone.” We look at the way Rainie Oet’s poem I Miss the Slug Ooze of That Summer You Died unfurls itself from the potent oozy image of the title and starting line “I put a slug on my knee and watched it crawl down my leg.” How the image of the “ooze” hangs over the entire poem, even though it is discarded immediately and not revisited, bestowing an oozy quality on each stanza.
Next we look at the title poem from Sharon Old’s collections Stag’s Leap, which chronicles Old’s divorce from her husband coalescing around the central image of a stag leaping on the label of their favourite bottle of wine. We muse on our associations of stags, how it conjures to mind a “Stag’s head on a hunter’s wall,” which warps the stag from a symbol of freedom to a trophy. “A stag can mean either a lot of company or no company, stag night vs going stag.”
Pulling from our reading, for exercise to conclude the session, Antosh tasks us with writing about a person by drawing from something that is coded in nature, first finding the image and then writing our associations around it. Perhaps you could give it a whirl? Think about a person in your life, what in nature would you use to characterise them?
Archive
Junior & Young Writers Week 3: Return From The Magical World
Junior & Young Writers Week 2: African Mythology
Problems, Problems, Problems...
Cautionary Tales & Christmassy Opening Lines
You've Gotta Have Pace, Pace, Pace
Junior & Young Writers Week 1: Alien Encounters
Junior & Young Writers: Week 5 - Play on Words Pt. 2
Junior & Young Writers: Week 11 - end of term showcase [build a bard workshop]
Junior & Young Writers: Week 10 - Greek Theatre - chorus stories
Junior & Young Writers: Week 9 - Greek Origin Stories - Spring
Rubber Ducks & Writing Festivals
Junior & Young Writers: Week 7 - Greek Hero Stories [the 12 labours of Hercules]
Junior & Young Writers: Week 12 [Wild Words] - Stuff & Things
Junior & Young Writers: Week 11 [Wild Words] - World Building 2
Junior & Young Writers: Week 10 [Wild Words] - World Building
Junior & Young Writers: Week 9 [Wild Words] - Mystery & Choose Your Own Adventure
Junior & Young Writers: Week 8 [Wild Words] - Spooky Sequels & Potion Poems
Junior & Young Writers – Week 10 (Writers’ Inspiration) – Final Showcase
Junior & Young Writers – Week 9 (Writers’ Inspiration) – Editing & Performance Tips
Junior & Young Writers – Week 8 (Writers’ Inspiration) – Cuteness
Time goes on by Tavinder Kaur New
Junior & Young Writers – Week 7 (Writers’ Inspiration) – Natural Solutions
Junior & Young Writers – Week 6 (Writers’ Inspiration) – The Language of Fruit and Veg
Junior & Young Writers – Week 5 (Writers’ Inspiration) – Adventures In Space
Tinklebobs and Bedraggled Angles
Junior & Young Writers – Week 4 (Writers’ Inspiration) – Our Environment
Fortune Tellers & Future Letters
Junior & Young Writers – Week 3 (Writers’ Inspiration) – Home
Young Writers - Week 10 (The Art of Writing) – Final Week Showcase
Junior Writers - Week 10 (The Art of Writing) – Final Week Showcase
Young Writers – Week 9 (The Art of Writing) – Choose Your Own Adventure
Junior Writers – Week 9 (The Art of Writing) – Choose Your Own Adventure
Young Writers – Week 8 (The Art of Writing) – Sequel Stories
Junior Writers – Week 8 (The Art of Writing) – Sequel Stories
Young Writers – Week 7 (The Art of Writing) – Picture Prompts
Junior Writers – Week 7 (The Art of Writing) – Picture Prompts
Young Writers - Week 6 (The Art of Writing) - Script-writing & Dialogue
Junior Writers - Week 6 (The Art of Writing) - Script-writing & Dialogue
Junior Writers – Week 5 (The Art of Writing) – Poetry
Young Writers - Week 5 (The Art of Writing) - Poetry Potions
Edward The Martyr - A Competition!
Mood Boards and Postcards from Space
Young Writers - Week 3 (The Art of Writing) - PLOT
Junior Writers - Week 3 (The Art of Writing) - PLOT
Moomin Stories and Hollywood Pitches
Young Writers - Week 2 (The Art of Writing) - Genre & Setting
Junior Writers - Week 2 (The Art of Writing) - Genre & Setting
Prompts, Dialogues, and Cliché
Story Structure Part One: Exposition and Beyond...
Young Writers - Week 1 (The Art of Writing) - Character
Young Writers - week 4 - Nature Writing [animals & wildlife]
Junior Writers - week 4 - Nature Writing [animals & wildlife]
Young Writers - week 3 - Nature Writing [trees/plants/flowers]
Junior Writers - week 3 - Nature Writing [trees/plants/flowers]
Young Writers - week 2 - 'fractured fairy tales'
Junior Writers - week 2 - 'fractured fairy tales'
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