The first of my songs I recorded was the first half of a song I wanted to sound like medival babes but then I found ambient voice which adds echos and with some chopping of bits of the song etc… created the dance-ette version.
I like it though it is basically a remix even though I haven’t yet recorded all of the original!
I hope you like it.
I am now running poetry workshops and courses for such organisations as The Cheltenham Poetry Festival and Centre Arts mainly for children.
The main two workshops I am offering are the Poetry Dragon which has appeared in the local newspaper and Muse Monsters. Both of these offer a handicraft as well as writing activity for those partaking.
Poetry courses for children will be running from September at Centre Arts in Cheltenham – I believe there are still currently spaces on the courses if you wish to book your child in (you need to be in the local area for these).
More workshops are in the making and I will let you know of them as soon as I have tried and tested them 🙂
Back at the beginning of the year I did a song writing challenge with the aim of writing one song a day (or more writing down and sorting out ones I’d been making up). Then in the spring I went to a song writing workshop organised by the Cheltenham Underground with Paul Murphy – this was excellent and really installed me with a sense that I could do something with my songs.
I have since been working on them, I have guitar sorted for one song and half another worked out.
In the last week I have discovered recording software on the laptop I am using and have recorded, mixed and released songs on Bandcamp – you can buy the tracks if you want with buyer sets the price but they are mainly there so I can get feed back.
Dear friend, I love you
But I am only free to say so
As you are gone forever
And I am married
So finally
I say
I love you
I should have told you
But held my council
And then things where never in the right places
To say
And I could not
For fear of rejection
For fear of friendship lost
I should have told you
That first day
I should have screamed it
To the clouds
Then you would have laughed
And kindly turned me down
And our class would have laughed with scorn
And I would have drifted away free
And friendship would have been awkward
Then severed
And I would not be here
With a breaking heart
I wouldn’t be feeling this pain
Wouldn’t have to tell my husband
The way I feel
As he holds me close and treats me gently
I love him more
But was that only circumstance?
Either way I can say it now
I love you
Saturday ie tomorrow I will be doing a quick poetry reading in the Waterstones in Cheltenham with some fantastic other poets (it’s a quick one as I’m running away to a family wedding!). This event is organised by the Cheltenham Poetry Festival who have been putting on some fantastic events through out the year. The readings in the Waterstones are going to be the first Saturday of each month 11-2pm.
Another event that they are running is Poetree in the Park – the last one got in the news paper along with a cute picture of Jean holding up a poetry dragon 🙂
I’m going to be running an number of workshops and courses mainly for kids for the Festival and the new Center Arts in Cheltenham on top of the craft workshops I do for festivals anyway 🙂 They are also holding an Exhibition in Braille in September which I hope to have a textural art piece in (made of papier mache of course!).
On top of that I hope to have the poetry book sorted soon and also take the Monster Writing Game to the next level. I do however need more outlets for my art work – I may get an exhibition soon but I need to be in shops and stuff more than doing craft fairs each Sunday. The trouble with that I’ve been finding is that you have to spend money out in the first place to buy shelf space very few places do it on commission. I would also love as I think I mentioned about three years ago now :/ to become a member of the Gloucester Guild of Craftsmen but again it takes money and I am still only braking even as I am still building up my equipement and stocks at the moment.
I will confess to having gotten carried away with making educational games and designing crafts to help the kids engage in writing workshops but I finially feel I am heading in the right direction here 🙂
Oh and also some of my local kids poetry is going to be on display at the village Flower Festival this weekend which is well just lovely 🙂
A sound
A colour
A sensation
Golden dust
Iridescence
Candescance
Shimmer
Beer in these places
Bronze stags
Burnished metal
Chain link as fat as yer arm
Wood chunky
Pragmatic
Blackened and scared with age
Beer in glass barrels
Indented in windows
Handle reassuring and thick
Mine has a big head
Yours does not
You laugh and say it’s cider
They say they have hearts of stone
Or they are as hard as rock
But watch the chalk powder
Soft and obliterated
It is stone, It is rock
In water, soft as butter
Clay is rock
Rock that is malleable
You can form it to any shape
These people so impenetrable
Are vulnerable just like us
Even heavy basalt
Dark and heavy
May fracture
with the easiest of blows
Hard but brittle
Strength in some axes
Not in all
They say they have
Mountains of strength
Or that they are immovable
But watch the slate quarry
Welsh Mountains
Split and eroded
By the smallest creatures
Making nests
Split and eroded by the miner
Split and eroded by curious children
Every Mountain will wash to the sea
It is only a question of time
Look for the signs, the cracks
And be kind
We are all
Hard as rock
Beautiful rainbow
Garden of the sea
Looped around itself
Flowers bloom
Purple-blue
Intricacies of colour
Entwined
White sands
Azure-Turquoise
Clear and pure
The above world
A mirror
Clouded with reflected colour
Shimmer and ripple
Creakings of the mind
Send shivers down my spine
In this place
In this place
Rainbow colour shard
Memories will not be marred
In this place
In this place