Landscape and Memory Workshop, 17th February 2018.
with Dr Rhiannon Hooson.
Hay Writer’s Circle felt extremely lucky to have Dr Rhiannon Hooson facilitate an all-day poetry workshop in the comfortable surrounds of Cusop Village Hall. The sold out event was attended by four members of our group and ten non-member participants who were keen in further developing their poetry.
All work and no play – Participants enjoying feedback
Rhiannon was excellent. She squeezed every drop of lyrical imagination we possessed onto the page and many of us left the day a little shattered, but buoyant with notebooks filled with poems, part poems and notes for future expansion.
We wrote about the place and places we call home, how we travel to get there and what roots us to these individual landscapes. We read descriptions of places, picked out words, reinvented a line or thought from the prose extract and constructed new poems. We always edited and highlighted successful and interesting phrases as we went, (I found this very useful). Finally we looked at our ‘home’ and travelled back in time imagining the changes it had seen, even going back many thousands of years.
Then at around 3pm, with such intensive mental energy concentrating on the idea of landscape, the incredible happened…..an earthquake (4.4 magnitude), which caused a ripple of additional excitement to an already stimulating day.
I promise the above photo contains my original written notes minutes before it happened – I wrote the word ‘EARTHQUAKE’ after the rumbling ended.
Some feedback from the day:
‘A busy, exciting and work filled workshop! Lots of interesting ideas and notes to forward for the future. Brilliant’
‘Supportive, productive, enjoyable.’
‘Excellent, thank you. Really well organised, great venue.’
**A huge thank you to Rhiannon for a truly exhilarating day which everyone thoroughly enjoyed and to Hay Writer’s Secretary, Marianne who organised us all so beautifully.**
Dr. Rhiannon Hooson is a Welsh poet and author.
Rhiannon Hooson – Seren Books
She has won major awards for her work, including an Eric Gregory award from the Society of Authors, and performed at literature festivals and venues across Europe and the UK, including London, Milan and the Hay festival. Her work has been featured in the Guardian, Magma, and Poetry Wales among others.
She is an experienced workshop leader and creative mentor, with five years experience of teaching Creative Writing at a university level, and fourteen years experience of creative mentoring and leading workshops.
Her first full length collection, The Other City, was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year award, and was described by the judges as “Stunning… at a pitch of achievement many of us will not reach across a career.”
To purchase a copy of The Other City – CLICK HERE
To find out more about Dr Rhiannon Hooson’s up and coming events, plus workshops and mentoring services follow this link to her website – http://www.rhiannonhooson.com/p/bio.html
THE HAY WRITERS 