WOKING WRITERS CIRCLE MEETING ON ZOOM THURSDAY 19 NOVEMBER 2020

Attending: Amanda, Danny, Liz, Alan, Greg, Tricia, Heather, Carla, Alix, Hilary 

NEWS

Liz reported that the book group had met recently to discuss The Singapore Grip by JG Farrell. The next novel on the agenda would be Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

She had also paid a visit to Brookwood cemetery, which the WWC is planning to visit as a group next year. Liz suggested using a guide would be a valuable move.

Alan reported that, as a result of our chairman Peter Morley once again circulating the newsletter of Gosnells Writers Circle in Perth, Australia, he had had a piece of flash fiction published in their Showcase section.

READINGS

The optional theme was Remembrance. Greg read a poem titled ‘Le Treport’, about his mother’s successful family quest in the 1960s to locate her grandfather’s first world grave in a coastal town in northern France. Greg hopes this will be published in the Wilfred Owen Association Journal next year.   

Tricia gave us another piece in the jigsaw of her pandemic saga, The Deadly Crown. The action moves to an Antarctic research station previously used for surveying penguins, on the one continent where there is no virus, “the only clean zone”. Alan said it all reminded him of the film Ice Station Zebra.

Alan read his story All Present and Correct, on the theme of Remembrance. Someone picks up the phone and answers ‘Festering …’ (Another one for that long-awaited map of Alan’s alternative place names). The action revolves around the fear that an old comrade with Alzheimer’s will spill the beans about something that happened in the notorious Helmand province of Afghanistan. A commemorative parade goes off uneventfully, but then two old soldiers receive white feathers in the post.

Heather contributed two short poems on the theme – ‘Remembering or not’, and ‘Do You Remember?’ The first one was about the things you can’t remember, such as a pin number while queuing for the cash dispenser, and the odd things you never forget. The latter, poignant poem was about visiting a dying, close friend in hospital: “That heedless world we thought would last for ever …”

Carla’s short poem ‘Lest We Forget’ had the colour red – the colour of poppies and blood – running through it, with lines including “soldiers in vermilion stripes”. There was a link with Sylvia Plath, and she also mentioned one with an Italian first world war poet.

Liz gave us five haiku full of images taken from patterns in a kimono that she hadn’t previously looked at for 10 years. Members felt that although the material – pardon the pun – was very personal, it was also very relevant to lockdown.

Alix gave us a poem loosely based on the theme of Remembrance called ‘Old Hurts’. Memorable lines included this one, about the bones “beneath your bones-picked day”.

Hilary’s A Month of Small Things was about lockdown and remembrance. With lockdown, the organism “had achieved the anarchist’s dream”, with “a master plan no more complex than to replicate”. She discussed the phrase “narrowing down”, with its hints of wartime, but also in reference to the naturalist Gilbert White of Selborne, who used it in a more positive sense. Hilary listed other positive moments during narrowing down, such as the “mist in the morning when I open the curtains” and “that first taste of apple crumble.” Now take some time to think of your own positive moments during lockdown.

Danny gave us two very short, masterly crafted short stories. ‘Local Hero’ is about a man lauded for apparently saving a little girl from a burning tower block after a gas explosion. He knows he does not deserve the plaudits. ‘The Oak Tree’ contained this line: “They met after the end of the world.” It is about gardening for a future that, with grandchildren dead, no one will see.

Next meeting on Zoom: Thursday 17 December.

Homework theme: Small things.