WOKING WRITERS CIRCLE MEETING ON ZOOM 16 JULY 2020

 

Attending Amanda, Greg, Liz, Mel, Tricia, Carla, Hilary, Simon, Alex, Danny, Alan, Heather.

 

News

Alan has a new blog on his website, with guest posts. You can find it here

Carla has launched her poetry collection with a splendid night that included guest appearances from Heather, Liz and Greg, as well as many other poets from near and far . She was also guest poet at Write Out Loud Woking on Zoom last month.

Liz mentioned the upcoming book group meeting on Zoom. If you wish to attend a book group meeting contact Liz for log-in details.

Hilary reported that she had not yet heard from the church about returning to holding real meetings there. Since then there have been developments, and Hilary may well be letting us know about them at our August meeting.

 

Readings

Tricia continued with her ongoing story about the pandemic, ‘The Deadly Crown’. The experts are uncertain while two main characters Don and Bo are plotting tactics. At one point Mr J picks up a picture of his latest child.

Carla read her prose-poem titled ‘Canada Day’, written during a recent workshop with the poet Hannah Lowe. A day – uncertainty about which day – when something surreal happens. Heather commented afterwards that it was very much ‘still a poem’.

Greg read his poem ‘Heliocentric’, inspired by sunflowers sown and tended by his wife Gillian during lockdown.

Alex read the first chapter and some of the second of a novel, ‘The Dive’, about a childhood accident. She plunged straight in, as it were, with plenty of aquatic images.

Liz continued with her current ‘addiction’ to haiku, with two sets, in which she rhymed the first and last lines as well. ‘Time’ was about a hotel getaway, and how we spend time. Her second set was a five-course affair, which she had read at Carla’s book launch.

Hilary has started a new novel, about hair, saying she had become obsessed about hair in the last few months. The story of Jimmy A and his salon was being developed from a short story. She said that her previous novel had been sent to an agent, although such agents have been overwhelmed with submissions during lockdown. Hilary said she would not be sending out to any more until the Covid dust settles.

Melanie gave us the first draft of a short story called X. Images of tedious routine combined to conjure up a virus-influenced, Owellian atmosphere.

Heather’s ’24 July 2020’ was not a Venetian masquerade, but “Waitrose, Woking, in July”. She described shoppers wearing masks, a “quick-step in the aisles … swathed in plastic, I try and smile.”

Simon’s erudite poem was composed of lines lifted from names such as Wyatt, Larkin, Eliot, Arnold, Yeats, Auden, Spenser and Neruda. We got a few but struggled to name all the poets before he put us out of our misery!

Danny continued with his short story The Visible Man, developing the interrogation scene between the detective and the protagonist. The dialogue is immaculate as the detective switches roles, from empathy to accuser.

Amanda’s poem ‘Wasps’ compared such insects to juvenile delinquents, that ‘spoil the spread, bomb the wine, nosedive the trifle’, finally asking ‘why can’t they behave more like bees?’, those latter insects beloved by poets.

Alan’s clever piece of fiction imagined staging the local show on Zoom this year, and was replete with lines about ‘marrows’ and ‘fondling the biggest one’. His one-sided conversation included an intruder wearing a face mask.

 

Next meeting: Thursday 20 August. Await log-in details from Amanda.

Optional theme: Masks, or Muted. What else?!