hosted by the
WestEustonPurplePoets
'Making Workshops Work'
National Poetry
Day Panel Discussion:
The London Time Bank
Poetry Project 2003-onwards
Making Workshops Work
chair: Karen Lyon
confirmed panellists:
Wendy French
David Neita
Kim Morrissey
Chair of the Panel: Karen was the new economics foundation
project manager for the London Time Banks Poetry Project. She edited London
Time: Poetry from London Time Banks (London: new economics foundation,
2004) and organized the 2005 National Poetry Day Reading for London Time
Banks at the Poetry Café, with guest poet Andrew Motion.
Wendy French is a London poet. She was the
poetry tutor for My Time, Our Time Time Bank (Hexagon) (2003-2005).
She is former head of the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital School where she
led an arts based curriculum as she believes in the healing power of the
arts. She left this post in order to develop poetry and writing in healthcare
settings.
Wendy is the author of two pamphlets: Sky Over Bedlam and We Have
A Little Sister And She Hath No Breasts (from tall-lighthouse). She has
also edited two Rockingham anthologies of hospital children's poems -- Dog
Bark (for the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital School) and What's Your
Problem? (for the Guys Hospital Evelina School). Her first full collection,
Splintering the Dark was published by Rockingham Press in 2005.
................................................................................................................
ERRANDS
by Wendy French
and on the ground the purple flower
(Sappho Fragment 105A)
At Goudhurst I stop and buy Green Tea
before entering the churchyard.
Here graves are not guarded by statues.
I leave no money to ward off evil spirits.
I unpick stitches of your last morning;
you leave the boat for that errand, tea half-drunk.
As I walk to your plot an old school-bus stops
at the end of the lane, collects children
for home. Symbols on Taipei's dilapidated buses
had been impossible to decipher
and we ran, laughed, not knowing
how to recognise signs that we needed.
I could walk to your grave blindfolded.
The ground needs to settle in a way you never did.
You found our bus by holding up the paper
to an elderly man who led us forward.
The driver took his fare out of our purse
and we were on our way to buy bean curd.
We rode through shadowed landscapes -
hills rising out of earthquaked lands.
The tofu in the market made our stomachs heave.
Here, stillness, head stones.
Steps on concrete the only winter sound
and I walk alone, carry one small tree.
© Wendy French
from her first published book
Splintering the Dark
Rockingham Press, 2005 |
WEBSITES FEATURING WENDY FRENCH'S WORK:
Poetry P F:
http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/wendyfrenchpage.html
the tall-lighthouse
www.tall-lighthouse.co.uk/
Rockingham Press
www.rockingham-press.co.uk/
Kim Morrissey turned down the
chance to read with the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, on National Poetry
Day 2005 to do a three week reading tour in Saskatchewan, to celebrate the
province's centennial. While all the other time bank poets were reading at
the Poetry Café, Kim was (reading with wonderful Saskatchewan
writers Robert Currie and Sharon Butala) somewhere south of Moose Jaw.
These sorts of decisions have made her the household name that she
is today.
David Neita
David Neita has been
the poetry tutor for Rushey Green Time Bank since The London time Bank
Poetry Project started in 2003. (Click on link for more details). |
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This is an educational site.
© resides with the author. All rights reserved.
West Euston Purple Poets
Writer-in-Residence
Kim Morrissey.
For permission to use any of this material
please contact the West Euston
Time Bank.
London Time Banks
are supported by The Community Fund,
the Association of London Government,
the King's Fund and Bridge House Estates Trust
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