Change of Date for next Rural Writes meeting in Gorleston.

Our meeting which was to be held on 7th Feb is cancelled and as the following week falls in half term, the next meeting will be 11.30 - 13.30 on 21st February. 

If anyone from the other groups which make up the Rural Writes team of writers would like to visit one of the Gorleston meetings you will be made very welcome. 

Poem by Lyn McKinney

Julia Webb's Poetry Masterclass at Gorleston Rural Writes group encouraged one of our members to pen the poem below. It was inspired by our current theme,  the Women of Norfolk.

There will be more following very soon.

Thank you Lyn for the lovely engraving which is featured with the poem.

MARY EASTEY AND REBECCA NURSE

Leaving Yarmouth town Plough Monday

Sisters board the brig as though it were

A stepping stone to a dream.

A crescent moon hangs low

Over the black waters of the Yare

Showing their path to the stars.

Ropes are cast and the lights of familiar places

Fall away in the deepening gloom,

Sails flapping, salt spray flying, she’s away

Out into the bay on the rising tide.

Families huddle below creaking decks

As the cradle rocks ominously.

Father Towne watches over his girls,

Sleeping in their woollen shawls,

Their arms around each other.

Was it God who called him to Paradise?

How can he know

Their dark destiny?

Six bells, and a bleak, uncaring morning,

Only the brave are there to see it;

Rough seas break across the bow,

Making the timbers creak in pain.

There are few takers for the bread

And thin soup.

Six year old Mary holds Rebecca’s hand,

Lest she should lose her footing

And be pulled overboard by the sea serpents.

But her sister keeps them at bay,

With stories of lions and tigers,

And kindly strangers.

Two months at sea, with pale faces anxiously

Scanning the horizon, until a lengthy shoreline looms.

There is a service of thanksgiving where  

Mary clutches her doll and smiles up at Rebecca.

Who knows what devilment awaits them

In Salem, Mass?

by  Lyn McKinney

Poetry Masterclass in Gorleston

We all agreed that the Poetry Masterclass with Julia Webb was very enjoyable and has given us all some great ideas for the future. Here is the group at the Library 

POET JULIA WEBB DELIVERS MASTERCLASS IN GORLESTON

Julia Webb is delivering a masterclass in poetry to the Gorleston Rural Writes group and she is hoping to tease some autobiographical poetry out of the women. The workshop is generously supported by the Norfolk Arts  Project Fund and will be held in Gorleston Library, another partner in the community writing project. Julia is an experienced tutor, her latest collection reviewed below, is a beautifully moving and complex series of revelations.

Bird Sisters is a quest to understand the tangle of family and especially the river of a relationship that runs between siblings.  It is a brave book, a tense, personal evocation of life in a family overshadowed by the rule of a ‘Sun Father’, and his punitive severity blighting the lives of the children – and the shadowy orbit of ‘Moon Mother.’ Webb conjures childhood memories into enchanted, surreal motifs that fuse with the authentic detail of the everyday.  We are carried through the universe, only to land in a snatched sexual encounter outside the chicken abattoir, which twists into a mythical transformation.

To me, as a reader, I found the prose poems, the accounts of things that happened at home, compelling, like The Piano Lesson – (refused by Daddy), Lent and Rain.  This is a world of slights, longings and cruelties, darkness and difficulty, spiky, complex relationships, and acts, however small, of a rebellion and resilience.  There are wonderful images, ‘Her mother darns the window.’  - ‘Like a baby dandled on the knee of the sea.’ And lines that completely twine the natural world, the local, regional, recognizable world into the being of the characters that populate this collection – ‘you send your snaggle fingers down/into Breckland’s thin soil/snare rabbits in the net of your tresses.’ (From the Same Cloth).

This is an intriguing book, myth and miasma, real and sobering, as if the writer is still puzzling it all out.  A great read.

Bird Sisters, Julia Webb, Nine Arches Press, 2016.

Belona Greenwood

Words and Women

Still going strong in Gorleston

Hi, I'm Hilary the administrator of the Blog for the Gorleston Rural Writes group.

For your information, we meet every fortnight at Gorleston Library. Our next meeting will be on 31st January when Julia Webb will be giving a Masterclass in Poetry. The group are very much looking forward to this and to prepare, we are each composing a poem to be read on the day of Julia's visit. We have moved our original meeting date of 24th January to accommodate Julia's visit so our next meeting after 31st will be 7th February and every fortnight after that.

All our work this term is focused on Women of Norfolk to celebrate International Women's Day on 8th March. Our aim is to have enough material to produce a small book of prose and poetry later in the year. As we no longer have the services of Bel or the editing skills of Lynne in our armoury, we would like to call on our opposite numbers in both Swaffham and Watton to become our 'critical friends'! We are happy to return the favour too!

Over the next few weeks, we will be posting some of our work on the blog and would appreciate feedback from members of the other Rural Writes groups ( or indeed Bel if you want to contribute!). 

If the administrators of the other groups would like to contact me you should already have my email as I sent it to you before Christmas, if not, Bel has it and I am sure will forward to you.

Meanwhile, let's make sure that we keep the flag flying for Norfolk Women Writers!

Hello

Hi everyone at Rural Writes. Hilary here. Just testing

RURAL WRITES WRAPS UP THE YEAR WITH A CHRISTMAS WISH

The run up to Christmas has been busy for the Rural Writes groups - after the launches, all the groups have continued to meet and write - Swaffham has had a visit from poet and short story writer Kathryn Simmonds who delivered their first masterclass thanks to funding from Norfolk's Arts Project Fund with more masterclasses scheduled for January and February.

The beautiful book, Gull Stones and Cuckoos can be borrowed from every library in Norfolk now...but is also available to buy - and what better Christmas present than a copy stuffed into a stocking for friends and family.  This is a book of life writing and a social history document bringing contemporary country life to the fore.

Below is a very long link but click on it and it will take you to where you can order the book online!










https://wordery.com/gull-stones-and-cuckoos-lynne-bryan-9781910061411?cTrk=MzI2OTc1Nzl8NTg0ZWQ1ZWRiNjE1YToxOjE6NTg0ZWQ1ZDdmMzQyODguNDczMTk1Mjg6YjJhMTcyNGU%3D

Keep watching this blog for new writing in the new year.