17 May 2022
Liminal Space Tourist
This week’s session of Crow’s Nest began with sharing what we are reading, and then a prompt to describe our week as ‘a shape and a flavour’. Responses included a pot of slime that’s been left out overnight (which tastes of out-of-date grapes), and a square that tastes of cinnamon (which is usually a circular taste, but this week is square).
Antosh re-capped our term focus which we set in the first session: liminality i.e the state of being in between – and crowdsourced liminal times and spaces from the group.
These included:
Knocking on a door / doorway
Bridges
Rollercoaster Queues
Motorway Service Stations
Motels
Computer loading screens
Ad before a YouTube Video
Centre of a roundabout
Underpasses
Desert Road
Point between Sleep & Wakefulness
Asleep on a Bus
5am
Being on Hold
We were then shown some paintings, mostly from ‘Tales From The Inner City’ by Shaun Tan, spending a couple of minutes looking at each picture, capturing in note-form (or however we liked) the sensory and narrative ideas they inspired. Louise found the tiger and ballerina the most evocative, while Libby liked the deer looking out of the window (see the pictures below).
Antosh shared with us the ‘intentions’ he read into the pictures, as prompts for the next window of writing time, to use however we wished:
1. To observe from an interior misplaced life.
2. To assist an unlikely neighbour.
3. To hide from an aggressor / aggressive neighbour.
4. To emerge from an interior / inner state.
5. To observe misplaced life from an exterior.
Libby came up with the idea of a character who sets up camp in various liminal spaces (like roundabouts), surprising people who are only passing through – i.e a liminal space tourist.
Lastly, we read and discussed the poem ‘Not Long Ago, Milk Cows Ruminated There’ by James Tate (see below), and were led into writing time with a choice of prompts: someone confused by change / someone who rejects change / someone who embraces change.
Crow’s Nest returns next Tuesday at MAST Mayflower Studios.
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‘Not Long Ago, Milk Cows Ruminated There’ by James Tate
Archive
Storytelling and Escalation or Rising Action
Junior Writers Club Acrostic Poem
Notes on Intention for MAST Collective - Year 3 - Facilitation Focus
Earthquakes & Dominoes - MAST Collective Blog #4
SUPER MARIO AND POP CULTURE POEMS
Receptionists & Inky Voids - MAST Collective Blog #3
Saying No and saying YES on National Poetry Day!
There's a Dragon in the Wardrobe...
House Warming Party (The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known) - MAST Collective Blog #2
Intern Blog 5 - The Publishing Process
POEMS TO SOLVE THE CLIMATE CRISIS
On The Streets With Theresa Lola
Intern Blog 4 - The Internship Journey
NEW DIRECTIONS, STARTING SMALL - THE ORWELL YOUTH PRIZE
LIGHTHOUSES, HOPE AND METAPHORS
on workshop and transformations: frogs, lions, and the duck that becomes a larder...
Poetry Ambassadors - Interview with April Egan
Intern Blog 1 - Finding a Voice
World Poetry Day: Fluffypunk and the Invisible Women
On Being a Writer: A Conversation by Beth Phillips & Sam Morton
Poetry Ambassadors - Interview with Kaycee Hill
UNHEARD VOICES: INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY, AND STORIES OF CONFLICT
