Poetry Masterclass with Ellen Phethean

Saturday 10 March 2012 – 10.00 am to 1.00 pm

Darlington Arts Centre

 

Paying Attention

David Hockney: ‘The Chinese are very good on the subject of art… [they say] painting is an old man’s art, meaning that the experience of life and painting and looking at the world accumulates as you get older.’ Too often we make automatic sense responses, sometimes we need to slow down, to notice and to listen, to increase awareness of the fabric of our everyday lives and activities, as Blake wrote:  To see a World in a Grain of Sand.

It has also been said that if you want to write about a wall, the subject is too big, but if you carefully describe one brick, then you end up saying something about the wall after all.  We will be paying ‘close attention’ in a series of practical exercises, then bringing that knowledge and experience to our writing.

Poems we might use: 

Elizabeth Bishop – The Fish

Antjie Krog – when tight is loose

James Wright – Lying in a hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota

 

Ellen wrote Wall, Smokestack Books 2007, (www.smokestack-books.co.uk) a teen novel in poems when she was Writer in Residence with Seven Stories, Centre for Children’s Books. Her first full collection of poetry Breath, October 2009 Flambard www.flambardpress.co.uk) was shortlisted for the London Fringe 1st Collection Award 2010.   Mulberry and the Blue Hands is her first novel in prose, which has been long listed in the Times/Chicken House Children’s novel competition 2012. She is currently working on a sequel.  She teaches Creative Writing and runs workshops, and is currently blogging a novel in poems, for teenagers: Blog: www.diamondtwig.co.uk/hom

 

Organised by Vane Women Press

Tickets: £16

 

Darlington Arts Centre

Vane Terrace,

Darlington,

DL3 7AX

Box Office 01325-486555