I don’t write poetry. My days of doing so have been over for several eons. However, the first homework we were set, and which I completed and submitted, was to write a poem inspired by a photograph. Here goes.
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Here’s a piece of writing I submitted for a creative writing course at the City Lit. It was received quite well, and one of the other students said it was the most accurate description of Santa Monica that she’d ever read. Others liked the dialogue. Me? I still chuckle over the misunderstanding about drive-in movies!
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In recent years I’ve become interested in a branch of writing called Oulipo, and have discovered that it’s not only people associated with the theatre or film who have put their individual stamp on Hamlet. Writers too have got in on the act.
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Sometimes what you produce is unutterable rubbish. But occasionally you really do produce something worth keeping, or which sparks an idea for a new piece of writing.
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Today began promisingly….
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Doglegs your yachtswoman need a boost of instigator?
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Does your writing need a boost of inspiration?
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Who would have thought that during lockdown, a time that you can venture out of your front door only if your life depends on it (or you’ve run out of milk), it’s been possible to have conversations with all sorts of people?
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Adverbs serve a purpose, or they wouldn’t exist, they would have fallen into disuse.
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I failed to do much __________ , but I was pleased to have __________ a further 17% of my __________
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On the face of it, experimenting with reworking a piece of writing is pointless. I mean, why bother?
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As you may know, the Dice Man makes all his decisions on the basis of a throw of the dice. Imagine if Hamlet was the Dice Man…
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I like photographing scenery in black and white, even though it may seem counterintuitive to do so.
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This course will look at examples of constraints created by some of the Oulipo’s main proponents, including the Hundred Thousand Billion Sonnets, the Metro Poem, and others.
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<Updated> You will need a novel and penguin and, if possible, a printed difficulty.
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The recent report by Smart Energy GB into how environmentally friendly British TV shows are is quite interesting, though not in a good way.
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This is a very different book from Short-Form Creative Writing: A Writer's Guide And Anthology, both in content and style, but covers similar ground.
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In the first session of a course called the Seven Ages of Poetry, the tutor, Julian Birkett, divided the class into breakout rooms and asked us to translate a translation of one of the verses.
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Karina Vidler has penned a great poem about “zooming”!
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A great stimulus, I find, is photography. I always try and take a digital camera with me wherever I go, or at least my phone.
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