Getting Lost in the Sounds of Spring
7 Days in the Orange Verse #60
It’s been a funny week. I started off feeling frustrated with my creative practice and like I haven’t written anything in ages. By the end of the week, I’ve felt like the universe has been dropping little presents for me and life seems to be aligning.
On Thursday night I went to Blast!, a poetry event organised by Saint Vespulus and the New Mersey Poets. It was such a wonderful evening, full of really high quality performances and I’m feeling really inspired to write. I started making notes in my phone on the way home on the bus and an angry tirade that will be a diss track to one of the other performers.
Plus, it’s hard to stay locked in your own mental torture when the trees are blossoming, the skies are blue and the birds are calling you outside.
1 Shouting Into the Void
I feel very stagnant at the moment. I feel like I'm not moving forward. I feel like I haven't written anything in months. I feel like my voice isn't landing. Sharing yourself on the internet is a very vulnerable act and when the numbers aren't rising it feels sort of pointless. BUT that's capitalism raising its ugly head.
I love writing. I love organising workshops. I love this little Orange Verse community. I want to do this stuff because it makes me happy.
gave me a nice reminder in this article.2 First Light
Having searched for artist-led initiatives I stumbled upon
by accident. One of the founders is the brainchild behind Kickstarter but this new initiative is putting out really creative work and making sure the artists get paid fairly.As a bonus, their most recent newsletter includes an Ekphrastic poem after the writer was sent an image of a star that no one else had ever seen before. Check it out.
3 Poetry Film
I made my first poetry film. I recorded the audio in the park because I wanted to get the birds chirping in the background. Unfortunately, the recording also picked up my phone vibrating as I receive a message, but I was already on take 7 and the dogs were getting annoyed at my slow pace and the birds sound soooo good in this take. Fuck Perfectionism.
4 Using Sound in Art
I discovered Sara Wolff this week, an absolutely gorgeous singer songwriter based in Liverpool. But she also does nature sound recordings and has contributed to this awesome global initiative, Cities and Memory, where artists share their field recordings for others to remix.
5 Poem
My Sexual Orientation is Spring
~ Kyla Jamieson
We change time, make the days longer. I start to forget the pact I made with unhappiness, take myself to the ocean, say I just need to catch the last few minutes of light. This is how spring is love, the way it pulls us towards pleasure.
6 Quote
And when you think about it, poets always want us to be moved by something, until in the end, you begin to suspect that a poet is someone who is moved by everything, who stands in front of the world and weeps and laughs and laughs and weeps.
~ Mary Ruefle
7 Prompt
What sounds are emerging this spring? Go sit under a tree, or throw open your window, and let the sounds wash over you. Now write what you hear. Think about where in your body you hear them.
Don’t forget, the 4 week Ekphrastic workshop starts on Tuesday for International Poetry Month. But the lessons you’ll learn will inform your poetry practice well beyond April.
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Have a wonderful week creating you beautiful zesty lot
Lots of love
Lorna 🍊