The writers’ group will recommence for 2013 in February, running the 1st and 3rd Fridays of the month at 7.15 pm. This group is run by an experienced writer and teacher. It is an opportunity to learn, express, improve skills, and share in a supportive group. Exercises are mixed will open participation. In 2013 will will start looking at the long text or writing piece. We study narration, structure and narrative forms, and then move on the closer attention to language and poetry.
All are welcome – you do not need to be published or experienced. The workshops will benefit all and are very affordable! Come with pen and paper on night! $15 attendance.
ring Elaine 0433760005
(We practice with poetry, dialogue and prose – three poetry samples included below. We plan to include more writing samples here – watch this space!
Writing samples
LATE ARVO AT COALCLIFF by Barbara Allen (extract)
Enduring shore break
Rhythmic, soothing
Continues unrestful
Paddle-footed gulls
March in a row
Across pebbles over weed
Move up and down
Call to each other
Stop, stand proud, puffed chests
Red legs contrast
Blackened coarse sand
Silently and single handed
Lone kayaker paddles forth metronomic
Kayak of orange, bright and sleek
Two alpha males
Promenade the foreshore
Pick their way along
Bodies and boards cleansed
Freshly showered trudging up
Rubber thongs with melodic ditty
Over slippery, mossy, slimy bedrock
Threesome trek
Tidal critters cringe
Fear of demolition
Calming gentle water
Swaying, enticing
Foamy and crisp
Three young senoritas
Traverse the coarseness
Pause
Thongs down, feet in
Chatter in unison
Walk in time
Friendship obbligato
Red floral maxi woman
Hat of khaki
Wait patiently by the water’s edge
Calmly smoking
Venture into the surf
Dip your head
Flick and slick your hair
Bikini exposed, adjusted
Pause, turn around
Where’s your butt?
Where’s your beloved?
Strolling young man at far end of shore
Where do you come from?
Where do you go?
Moon Poem no 4. By Darien Midwinter. 7-08-2012
Moon
Collector of cliché
Hoarder of hyperbole
Nonchalantly,
you stretch out
your languid, milky hand
as if to test the air
and feign disinterest
when yet another
compliment falls in it.
Casually you brush it off
as if a straying flying-ant.
But we see where it goes…
Moon,
tender ears
ringed with songs from silvered tongues,
fragile fingers
drooping with polished poetic gems,
delicate neck
laden with elegantly strung superlatives,
fulsome bosom
swelling with love letters tucked away.
Offhandedly,
you flick up
your flaxen head
as if to shift a wayward hair,
and field this latest folly
in your mille-fiore garland,
crowded with flowery load.
Seeming unaware you shimmer
Cooly and becomingly
But we see you are aglow…
Moon
Enticer of entreaty,
devourer of desire,
keeper of callow cupidity.
Your energy is entropy
your pallid courting
is in vain.
You hug others’ glory
unto yourself,
bask not in your own shine.
Ungenerous lover,
soliciting insouciant,
ever reflecting, never giving.
Moon
We know you are alone
‘On the flat platform of rock’ by Geoffrey Sykes
A few barely noticed mid afternoon bodies prostrate
Themselves on unforgiving final outcrop of land
Before the oceanic vastness of swells and laps at the feet
The obligatory stroking of sun on the back then front
Precedes the immersion in a chilled pool
Without talk, without reason, without looking
The few supplicants to natural blessing take their isolated turn
Stripped of clothing and other company
A ritual of repose if not something deeper, intangible, overwhelming
The habitual yet always unaccustomed
meeting of the human with another realm
Known with unknown, become with becoming,
Smaller crustated rock pools have been here for a generation and more before that
And over there, on the platform, huge rocks split vastly
measure ancient time in their own supplication
Yet the long trembling sculpturing waves have barely begun
To beat the time of day, as a slow rhythm begins,
In the chill of watery surround, bodies slide into a salt blessed future
For a time they are freed of themselves, they move outside history
They are formed and reformed by a moving, monumental sea-born mystery.
bushland chapel 