Woking Writers Circle welcomed back a former member last month – via the technology of Zoom. Liz C joined us from Kenya, to read a powerful and moving  poem called ‘Transformation’ based on Greek myth, and reflecting how she felt about the pandemic.

Also at the online gathering were Amanda, Alan, Greg, Peter, Tricia, Heather, Daniel, Carla, Chris, Liz L, Sarah DD, and Simon, plus new attendee Mel.

The homework – not for the first time – was ekphrasis (creativity based on a work of art). Greg responded with a poem about the curtailed David Hockney exhibition at the Lightbox, while Alan contributed a story called ‘The Iluminated Address’, in which the word ekphrasis depended on the wording of a will.

Peter gave us, in his words, a “fairly technical piece about hobbies”, which he titled ‘Nostalgia in the Man-Cave’. He acknowledged that at the moment the content was mainly of interest to vintage and veteran motorcycling buffs, but wanted to know how to make it more interesting. Phrases such as “coax the spigot” might be baffling to the uninitiated, but nevertheless have a certain mysterious poetry. He had written the piece because the lockdown meant that “it’s lovely to have the chance to remember and practise old skills”.

Our visitor Mel gave us what she described as a “half-finished” sonnet, based on work about portraits that she had been asking her students to do. She described it as a “self-portrait”. Its lines included these: “The brush-caught soul is hidden in full view,” and the final one: “A whisper of the ‘I’ no others see.”

Heather produced two beautiful and poignant poems that both looked at different aspects of  lockdown and said so much in a few lines  – ‘A phone call from a niece’, and ‘Not visiting my aunt’.

Tricia confessed that she was “intrigued by the current situation” in introducing the second chapter of ‘The Deadly Crown’ which looked to the near-future – 2022 – and a virus that had mutated from Covi-19 to the even more deadly Covid-21. A new strategy had to be created, which involved permanently limiting travel between countries, and dividing the world into new sectors.

Danny offered his short story ‘The Circus Elephant’, which he said was written a couple of years ago. Feedback mentioned its atmosphere and pathos, while Liz L felt there was too much telling , not showing, and Chris expressed surprise that he had not tried to get it published anywhere.

Chris said he was still playing around with his novel, which he is featuring on a website, and where every 10,00 words or so another character is killed. It featured Faust, corpses, and the graveyard shift, and concluded with an ostrich the size of an elephant climbing up the stairs.

Carla announced that her debut pamphlet, Negototiating Caponata, will be published by Guildford poetry publishers Dempsey & Windle next month. She has read a number of the poems within it at WWC meetings. We look forward to it. Meanwhile she read the first draft of an article she had written about Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye, in which the protagonist is a successful female painter.

Following on from her success in having haiku that she read at our last meeting subsequently published in the Woking News & Mail, Liz L read another of her canal haiku , which she had dedicated to Sarah DD: “Water lilies rise  / Slowly from roots in deep mud / Reaching for the light.”

Apologies if anyone’s reading was missed during the interval for the NHSA clap.

Our next Zoom meeting will be on Thursday 18 June, when the homework will be “summer holidays”.