The project has encompassed a couple of participatory workshops – one for fellow practitioners (mainly creative writers) and one for the Blooming Well group at The Alnwick Garden.
Practitioners’ workshop at Brunswick Methodist Church
An introduction to AYiB, with exercises inspired by the seasonal residencies and by the writing of Rachel Carson. The workshop’s aim was to provide creative inspiration with emphasis on experimentation and sharing rather than any fixed or finished output. The event was supported by Arts Council of England, Active Northumberland, New Writing North and AONB Northumberland. and featured morning and afternoon sessions.
THE EXERCISES
Responses to underwater photographs and to the names of flora found in the dunes and slacks • giving voice to a selected Beadnell beach “standings”, inspired by Carson’s deft anthropomorphic writing • an exercise based on the following from The Edge of the Sea (“On the roof of the cave is written a starkly simple statement of the force of the surf.”) • writing of poems – a sunset ghazal and a collaborative seasonal poem based on four-line stanzas.
Exercise for download, inspired by a sequence of Beadnell sunsets. Write a Sunset Ghazal
The Alnwick Garden Blooming Well workshop
Blooming Well is a community project that provides wellbeing activities for adults with dementia and their family. The workshop poem below is a collective work woven together from responses to flotsam and objects from Beadnell, selected by members of the group, along with from memories associated with the coast.
Workshop participants: Kath, Doug, Val, Bill, John, Edith, Bill, Mary, Thomas, Alfred, Rosemary, Margaret and Alan.
Click or tap photos to view large.
IT WAS THE SAND THAT BROUGHT US HERE
Coastal memories and reflections inspired by A Year in Beadnell
Brown and white striped feather
Small multi-coloured shell
It was the sand that brought us here.
Two white curvy shells,
mother and baby?
It was the sand that brought us here.
Went for a walk on the seashore and found several shells, but the two I like the most are the beautiful crab shell – it has a black background with salmon pink edges, some spots of colour each side, like a folded piece of blotting paper and some fungus-like growth too, and “two eyes”. The other is a small sea urchin it has a star shape of tiny dots and a kind of fold down the middle, and it rattles.
It was the sand that brought us here.
Brown feather, with white stripes either side.
The shell is a light brown colour and shiny, a bit like marble.
It was the sand that brought us here.
The white shell has a shape of a fan
With lines from the base to the top
The sign of this shell is seen
At filling stations owned by Shell Petrol Co.
It was the sand that brought us here.
We used to call Newton-by-the-Sea “Stinky”
While Beadnell was known as “port Knockie”
It was the sand that brought us here.
Small shell
Colours grey and black
It is called a limpet and
Is found in rock pools
It was the sand that brought us here.
The crab’s claw is slightly curved, the outside part of the curved side is smooth, the inside serrated – the sides are smooth. Part of it is white and the other part is more grey, greyer. While the front edge is a dullish point the other end has a hole in for attaching to the main body.
It was the sand that brought us here.
This sea urchin reminds me of meringues.
It was the sand that brought us here.
A feather fell from the sky
Why oh why, I was to say
Was it a letter from my Mam
To say she was OK?
It was the sand that brought us here.
Sea snail. I assume it lived for some time on the sea coast. It is the size of a fairly large sweet, it shell covered in brown and white stripes. Its shell looks possibly immortal or at least long-lasting.
It was the sand that brought us here.
