Ooooh
I, I love the nightlife
I got to boogie
On the disco 'round, oh yea
I got to boogie
On the disco 'round, oh yea
- I love the Nightlife, Alicia Bridges, 1978
The
Commonword two-part poetry event concluded at Nexus Art Café
on Monday 3rd
October, again led by Manchester poet Segun Lee French.
Following
on from last week's session, we delved deeper into surrealism and
Manchester night life. We also incorporated themes of cinema and
perspective to create another surrealist poem.
The
exercise began with our own memories of night life in Manchester. We
thought of a particular night that we personally remember. We
described this memory with a beginning line, a middle line and an end
line. Each line was to be no more than six words. I had:
Blonde
hair. Young. Friend introduces her
I
kiss her and swap numbers
It's
only my second night working
We
then thought of another scene from our lives, from roughly the same
time frame, and applied the same technique. Here's mine:
Flat
corridor. Fluffy handcuffs. Shopping trolley
Girls
gang up. I'm locked on
Water
pistols. Soaked. Sent to reception
Same
again for scene 3:
Bar
under student flat. Avoiding Snooker
Toby
goes ballistic, wanting a game
Throws
cue on floor. Marches out.
Scene
4 was a mythical scene. We were asked to think of a myth or legend,
and format it 6X3. So...
Narcissus
sees a lake, walks up.
He
sits at the water's edge
Sits
there transfixed at himself.
It's
a little clumsy but the point was to write fast, with whatever comes
into your head, as is the surrealist style.
The
fifth vignette was on a random subject of our choice. I chose the
kickboxer circuit class that I attend at the gym. There were fewer
restrictions on this one, allowing us to use short phrases of no
specific length. We wrote out 5 of these.
Puddles
of sweat
Kick
pads
Long
pad work for endurance
Jab
and hook combo
Stomach
slammed with medicine ball
Segun
distributed a series of blank cards. We wrote each line from each
verse on its own card. We then laid the cards out in order and
swapped cards between rows and columns. This gave the words a
surreal, mixed-up quality.
We
wrote out the new text on a sheet of paper, double-spaced, and looked
at whether there were any themes that emerged in the writing. With
the subjects combined, was anything pertinent?
Mine
seemed to have a theme of frustration or anger, or perhaps longing.
Hmm. Segun suggested we add in a few words throughout the poem (hence
the double spacing) to strengthen the theme.
And
there you have it. One surrealist poem. I'm again uploading my poem
as a separate blog post so that it stands alone. Those who haven't
read this explanatory post can make their own wild conclusions...
Another
great Commonword class. Contributors also got a chance to read out
their poem on Manchester's Unity Radio
on Thursday 6th.
I was tied up. Gutted. I'll be keeping my eyes open for Commonword
classes in the future as the teaching, finished products, networking
opportunities and enthusiasm of everyone involved is superb.
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