Foundling Tales: Foundling Museum Writer in Residence

LSU

2007-10-31T23:51:00.000Z

I worked with a group of LSU students and their teacher, Emily today. Sarah was there too.

We were at it all day, in a bog shed in near the graveyard in Coram's Fields (next to the museum).

I pushed them, and they responded well - we ended up with a fine bunch of poems.

Tick.

I hope they'll post some more poems up here...fingers crossed, you lot.

last ESOL session

2007-10-25T23:48:00.000+01:00

The ESOL group I was working with from Kingsway College seemed to have a great last session - we went to their college, and recorded sound and video pieces of them reading their poems.

I also photographed some of their 'tokens' which, with their words, will be installed in the Foundling Museum cafe.

I loved working with them. They were there 100%.

session two

2007-10-12T07:53:00.000+01:00

We had number 2 session with the ESOL group yesterday which involved writing a poem and me taking some photos.

It went well. Autumn sunlight was flooding the high tops of the London plane trees in Coram's Fields outside.

Here are a few of the pics to look at.

and for that matter, what's a poet?

2007-10-05T08:26:00.000+01:00

"a poet is a penguin - his wings are to swim with"

ee cummings

"A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feeling through words.

This may sound easy. It isn't.

A lot of people think or believe or know they feel - but that's thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling.

And poetry is feeling - not knowing or believing or thinking.

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel.

Why? Becasue whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people, but the moment you feel,

you're NOBODY-BUT-YOURSELF."

ee cummings

So What Is Poetry Anyway?

2007-10-05T08:03:00.000+01:00

Good question, boss...

- writing that does not use standard sentence structure and paragraph formatting. Often poems use rhythm and rhyme as part of their structure and will have specific line length and be set in stanzas rather than normal paragraphs.

- poetry (from the Greek "ποίησις", poiesis, a "making" or "creating") is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. Poetry may be written independently, as discrete poems, or may occur in conjunction with other arts, as in poetic drama, hymns or lyrics.
Poetry, and discussions of it, have a long history. Early attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotle's Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy.

Later attempts concentrated on features such as repetition and rhyme, and emphasised the aesthetics which distinguish poetry from prose. From the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more loosely defined as a fundamental creative act using language.

Poetry often uses particular forms and conventions to expand the literal meaning of the words, or to evoke emotional or sensual responses. Devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. Poetry's use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony and other stylistic elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly, metaphor and simile create a resonance between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between individual verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm.

Some forms of poetry are specific to particular cultures and genres, responding to the characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. While readers accustomed to identifying poetry with Dante, Goethe, Mickiewicz and Rumi may think of it as being written in rhyming lines and regular meter, there are traditions, such as those of Du Fu and Beowulf, that use other approaches to achieve rhythm and euphony. In today's globalized world, poets often borrow styles, techniques and forms from diverse cultures and languages.

- there are as many definitions of poetry as there are poets. Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings;" Emily Dickinson said, "If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry;" and Dylan Thomas defined poetry this way: "Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing."

- a poem may appear to mean very different things to different readers, and all of these meanings may be different from what the author thought he meant. For instance, the author may have been writing some peculiar personal experience, which he saw quite unrelated to anything outside; yet for the reader the poem may become the expression of a general situation, as well as of some private experience of his own. The reader's interpretation may differ from the author's and be equally valid- it may even be better. There may be much more in a poem than the author was aware of. The different interpretations may all be partial formulations of one thing; the ambiguities may be due to the fact that the poem means more, not less, than ordinary speech can communicate. (TS Eliot)

First Workshop

2007-10-05T07:53:00.000+01:00

I ran the first workshop at the Foundling museum yesterday, with my first-of-three groups - an adult ESOL group from Westminster-Kingsway College.

We looked at tokens in the museum (keepsakes that mothers left with their children for luck and identification purposes) , and I read them a poem by Carol Anne Duffy which is a fantastic evocation of a story behind an object:

Warming Her Pearls
for Judith Radstone

Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress
bids me wear them, warm them, until evening
when I’ll brush her hair. At six, I place them
round her cool, white throat. All day I think of her,

resting in the Yellow Room, contemplating silk
or taffeta, which gown tonight? She fans herself
whilst I work willingly, my slow heat entering
each pearl. Slack on my neck, her rope.

She’s beautiful. I dream about her
in my attic bed; picture her dancing
with tall men, puzzled by my faint, persistent scent
beneath her French perfume, her milky stones.

I dust her shoulders with a rabbit’s foot,
watch the soft blush seep through her skin
like an indolent sigh. In her looking-glass
my red lips part as though I want to speak.

Full moon. Her carriage brings her home. I see
her every movement in my head.... Undressing,
taking off her jewels, her slim hand reaching
for the case, slipping naked into bed, the way

she always does.... And I lie here awake,
knowing the pearls are cooling even now
in the room where my mistress sleeps. All night
I feel their absence and I burn.

Carol Anne Duffy

I also got them to think about tokens of their own, and poetry.

More thinking

2007-10-03T11:32:00.001+01:00

The first workshop starts this week, which I’m really looking forward to – and in preparation, I’m doing some more Foundling research, sitting in my shed at the bottom of the garden. All quiet but for the drone of the planes heading for Gatwick.

Subhadassi

writing

2007-09-28T14:10:00.001+01:00

The first session is next week, and since my last posts, I've been doing some research and some writing...my writing isn't at the stage where I'd want anyone to see it yet, but a poem is brewing!

thinking...

2007-09-28T14:07:00.001+01:00

So, I thought.

Then I cycled to Peckham and didn’t have a swim, though I got as far as getting onto a changing room and putting my swim shorts on (don’t ask).

Then I cycled home.

Then I thought some more.

meeeeeeeeeting

2007-09-28T14:06:00.000+01:00

Sarah, Alice and I met in the cafe of the Foundling Museum and Sorted Some Things Out - like:
What?
When?
How?

It was good - we got a lot done. The coffee was nice and strong.

Now I need to go away and cook up our ideas into something doable.

Hello!

2007-09-28T14:02:00.000+01:00

This is my first ever blog, and it is here because I’ve just started working as Writer In Residence at the Foundling Museum - I’ll add to it over the course of the residency, from September 2007 - November 2007. I’m working with three groups of students, and you’ll see some of their work here (words, sound) before too long. To find out more about me, look here