February 2023 Supplementary Meeting

HIGHTOWN WRITERS’ WRAP-UP FOR 7 FEBRUARY 2023 MEETING

 

 

 

Venue: Peepo

Time: 7 pm till around 9.20 pm

Your host: Alex “The Taskmaster” Swanson

 

 

The inaugural “Alternative Tuesday” was a star-studded occasion. Longtime members Adam, Jennie, Liz and I teamed up with new recruits Irena and Stuart for a night of linguistic light-heartedness and philosophical fancy.

 

The evening kicked off with information from Adam regarding monthly creative-writing classes that are taking place in Bridgnorth Library, from 1 pm to 3 pm, at just £2.50 per session – bargain! I’m sure I’ll be attending them. The classes will take place on the following dates:

 

8 March

12 April

10 May

14 June

12 July

9 August

13 September

11 October

8 November

13 December

 

After the above was noted, we started the wordsmithery with a “free-write” (a stream-of-consciousness exercise designed to stimulate creativity). Everyone wrote randomly on their pads – or PCs – for about five minutes until I cried “Stop!”

 

Adam’s, Liz’s, Jennie’s, Irena’s and Stuart’s compositions were quite sensible; mine, however, was… how shall we say… surreal. Dr Suess has always been a role model of mine.

 

Next up was the read-outs section of the evening – I set a limit of two typed sides of A4 or seven handwritten sides of A5.

 

Adam recited a piece of flash fiction entitled “The blue house”; it was quite short, but interesting, and it was about a lucky cat. The piece was written for his other writers’ group, but he read it at HTW first to test the water, so to speak.

 

Jennie then read out two pieces. The first was a free-verse poem entitled “A random asylum seeker” and was based on a real-life experience that she had experienced with a homeless man from Syria. The second was radically different: a piece of prose about a horse. “Green: an hour in the life of a horse” was its name, and it was written from a first-person perspective – or, perhaps, a first-horse perspective. Very entertaining, Jennie!

 

Irena read out a wonderful imagery-strewn pastoral poem called “Don’t hide from winter rains”. It was about rain’s effect upon the countryside, and it was highly original. I look forward to reading it soon on this blog.

 

Stuart’s piece, “Winter”, was composed last month and may be included in his Iron Age book. As usual, it was an immensely descriptive, senses-appealing piece that was very well-written and well-researched.

 

After that, in my head, I debated whether to read out my dialogue but decided to save it for another time because the conversation had become rather interesting. The topics discussed were as follows:

 

·         Pre-Roman Britain and its peoples

·         Asylum seekers and people’s ethnic origins

·         Group members’ stances on the supernatural

·         Iranian regimes and their histories

·         The plausibility of the Big-Bang Theory

·         The plausibility of Christianity, and its potential origins

·         Whether the Bible’s numbers are significant

·         Evolution

·         Whether things exist when they’re not being viewed (see Niels Bohr, Bishop Berkeley et al)

·         What kind of funeral service someone would have if they were from a Protestant and a Catholic background

·         Alternative burial methods [gruesome!!]

·         If God exists, why he allows evil [OK, yeah – that one was a bit of a cliché!]

·         Whether additional, non-Tuesday, meetings would be possible

·         The group’s tenth-anniversary book

·         The mysterious proofreader Alex knows who says he is willing to work on the above

 

HOMEWORK

 

The homework task was rather convoluted because it was set by an overly-avid English-enthusiast. It was divided into two sections: one for the poetry fanatics and one for the prosesters. You can do as many or as few of the tasks as you please – but the poets must do only the poetry tasks, and the prosesters must do only the prose tasks. Here they are:

 

1. Poetry

 

a) Write a sonnet that uses consonance rhyme (as opposed to ‘full’ rhyme).

 

·         Examples of full rhyme:

 

pram/tram; ring/sing; earth/mirth; car/bar; mouse/house; breeze/trees

 

·         Examples of consonance rhyme (a type of half-rhyme):

 

pram/scrum; ring/gang; earth/fourth; car/more; mouse/kiss; breeze/noise

 

So, to summarise, consonance rhyme is when only the end-consonant sound rhymes. It is subtler than full rhyme, and I think that it gives poems a smooth, understated sound… OK, perhaps that was a bit pretentious, but I like it!

 

b) Write a ‘modern’ haiku (3, 5, 3).

 

c) Write a tanka – which is basically an extended haiku (5, 7, 5, 7, 7).

 

2. Prose

 

a) Write a “fairy-story-with-a-twist” (you’re free to interpret this task how you wish).

 

b) Write a piece of flash fiction of no more than 200 words.

 

c) Write something that ends with the following line:

 

And there she was: lying under the piano! [Yes, it does have a 1920s-feel to it.]

 

MEETINGS INFO

 

The next meeting will be held on 28 February at 7 pm (but don’t worry if you can’t get there till 7.30 or 8 – we’re a relaxed, people-friendly group!), and Stuart has volunteered to host it. Also, I’m going to book Peeps for a meeting on 14 March so that we can discuss the group’s plans for its tenth-anniversary book – and everyone is welcome to attend!

 

CONCLUDING COMMENTS FROM ALEX

 

Right, well, that’s it, then. A good time was had by the six of us – and I think that it would be apt to say that it all went rather sepiously. See you all soon – same bat time; same bat channel.

 

There were six of us, Tuesday, in Peeps,

And, the words, they were poured out in heaps

’Cause philosophy’s great – it promotes rich debate –

And we’ll do it again in three weeks’.

 

Alex

 

NB: Just in case anyone’s wondering, the apostrophe after “weeks” in the above limerick is correct because I’m saying that the group’s members will meet again in three weeks’ time – no emails, please!