Making Our Own Light

the magic of poetry workshops, by Clare

Out of all the workshops I've ever led, tonight’s might be my favourite. I think I knew it would be from about ten minutes in.

It’s hard to put your finger on what makes a good workshop. Of course, it's something to do with structure and pacing, something to do with writing exercises which include you, and excite you, and challenge you…. I'm thinking of Carola Luther’s skilful crafting, how much planning and intelligence in her teaching - how she holds her workshops gently, perceptively, so that they engage everybody. I'm thinking of humour, and charisma, and Jackie Kay, and the workshop I attended in Lancaster where I wrote the title poem of my first collection, and it came out almost finished. It can be something to do with presence, and fame: I’m thinking of Carol Ann Duffy at Moniack Mhor, her hand on my shoulder, how I hung off every word, how she read “Stafford Afternoons” to us and the whole week, the expense, the trials of sharing a room with a stranger, the 8 hour drive in a leaking car that wouldn't get me home, was worth it. It’s something about being taken in new and unexpected directions – an online workshop with the author and poet Helen Cox, when I first encountered the concept of ghost signs, where I was encouraged to think about the personality of punctuation marks. It’s something about new skills – memoir writing with Cathy Rentzenkbrink, afloat in a warm river of knowledge, insight and enthusiasm. And something about place and environment as well - residentials at Lumb Bank, the long oak table and the smell of books, woodsmoke, low clouds over the forested slopes of the Colden Valley; or the limitless potential and excitement of the online space.

Not every workshop can be remarkable, but there’s something remarkable about writing with other people. Writing - solitary and entirely self-motivated - is possibly one of the most isolating activities, so writing as part of a group is bound to be transformed. As well as the opportunity to learn and practice the craft of writing, the social connection, there's the absence of the usual distractions - and the presence of some new ones. I'm so fiercely sensitive to noise that I’ve become increasingly nervous of attending workshops - there’s a danger that I might be driven to insanity by somebody sniffing, for example, or tapping loudly on a keyboard. Online workshops are a great way to avoid this - the mute button and the volume control are some of my favourite new friends. I can also be painfully hyperaware of boundaries - facilitators who overrun, or who let one participant dominate, can give me a migraine. Why then do I persist?

Because everything changes when people write together. In tonight's workshop, we read Rachel Mann’s “Eleanor as Julian as Margery”, and we considered the ways in which pressure can make us beautiful. The pressure in a writing workshop – the task, the limited time, the need for concentration, the weight of expectation, the silence – is a beautiful thing as well. It can act like poetic form, providing the boundaries which hold and enable our creativity. It's a place of contradiction: as a participant, you are both supported and challenged, liberated and contained, pushed further and further into your own interior as a result of being amongst others. Beyond the murderous levels of irritation I feel at someone repeatedly clicking their pen, there's also a level of acceptance and unity which is astonishing in its taken-for-grantedness. Strangers from disparate backgrounds sit alongside each other as they consider and explore deeply personal aspects of themselves and their worlds; they may share stories they have never shared before, in ways they have never considered. Incredible.

Tonight, several of us shed tears, good tears - and though we were many miles apart, we felt very close. And community was at the heart of several of the pieces I shared – including these extracts from Sabrina Imbler's “My Life in Sea Creatures”:

“The hairy-chested Yeti crab is a queer creature. Its hirsute pincers resemble the shaggy leg warmers you’d see at a rave. The crabs live in staggering numbers around deep-sea hydrothermal vents, with up to 700 animals congregating within one square meter at a time. They must stay within this precarious margin of safety, between the near-freezing temperature of the surrounding waters and the scalding 750-degree miasma of the vents. Straying too near or too far could leave them chilled or boiled to death …

… They also withstand unbelievable pressure. At one hundred feet below the sea , the human body begins to fold in on itself as the spongy tissues of the lungs contract. At 400 feet, it nears total collapse. But at 8,000 feet below, yeti crabs do just fine. Unbeknownst to the crustaceans themselves, Yeti crabs gained internet fame in 2016 when they became the star of a popular meme. In it, a Yeti crab perches on a grimy rock above the subtitle: “This creature has adapted to the crushing pressure and oppressive darkness.””

There it is again, that theme of surviving pressure - the resilience and beauty of communities who find ways to survive, even thrive, who generate their own light in dark times. It resonated strongly with me as a non-binary person in these transphobic times - it was striking how most of us in the workshop found personal salience and resonance in nature, from Sabrina’s Yeti Crab to Stephanie Burt’s cicadas and swans, to the blackbirds and oceans people named as their “Reasons For Staying” when we closed the workshop with a glorious group response to Ocean Vuong.

So I'm going to finish by letting you know that in June, Miriam Darlington and I will be running online Wild Writing workshops every day from 9 till 10am. Every session will be recorded, so you can watch them at your leisure. Miriam wrote “Otter Country, In Search of the Wild Otter” and “Owl Sense” with Guardian Faber, which was serialised by BBC Radio as Book of the Week and was a Sunday Times bestseller. By which I mean to say, when it comes to nature writing, Miriam is the real deal. Both Miriam and I will take our inspiration from nature – but our subjects will range from storms to sturgeons, redcurrant to recovery, deep ecology to death, wilderness to wild swimming. You get the gist - it’s going to be everthing.

It's £90 for the whole month .. or you can opt for a £30 week-long ticket. There’s also a pay-what-you-can option which starts from £1. You can pop in for an occasional workshop, or come every day for the whole month - the sense of community and connection you can build is incredible. I really hope to see some of you there!

To find out more, or to book your place, click here: Wild Writing with Clare and Mim.