As the sharp-eyed among you will notice, the Upcoming Workshops list has gone. That's because the funding for Community Education at CPIT was ‘reviewed’, and cut by 50%. As a result, the ACE department was disbanded at the end of 2010, and so my poetry courses no longer have a home. On the plus side …
A Tree Ate My Garden!
At long last, I return to the blog, although this is really just an excuses excuses post. Things have been a little chaotic. I meant to at least post a proper end-of-year-roundup, but in the week leading up to Christmas, this happened: What you're looking at it the remains of my poor vegetable garden, and …
Cinquains – for pleasure and profit
Ok, maybe not the profit part. But Wednesday was the first session of the POET105: Jump-Starting the Muse poetry workshop at CPIT, and one of the challenges I gave them was the cinquain. Like haiku, it's a form that most people get taught a fairly dodgey version of while at school. (Personally I blame maths: …
Tuesday Poem – “Wulf and Eadwacer”
Leodum is minum swylce him mon lac gife; willað hy hine aþecgan, gif he on þreat cymeð. Ungelic is us. Wulf is on iege, ic on oþerre. Fæst is þæt eglond, fenne biworpen. Sindon wælreowe weras þær on ige; willað …
Writing beyond
I'm reading the first book – an Advance Reader Copy, no less! – of Helen Lowe's keenly anticipated Wall of Night series, The Heir of Night. Enjoying it enormously so far. It's classic fantasy, complete with a more-than-usually-interesting proto-heroine in Malian. But there are twists that I recognise as uniquely Helen – the semi martial-arts …
A Dark Feathered Art 