Beat the Blues:
Got the winter blues?
Is it too much effort to get out of bed in the dark mornings?
Too cold and wet to go out for a walk?
Too easy to sit slumped in front of the TV?
Why Write
Writing is one of the tools we can use to help us feel better about ourselves and life.
Reading work by other people who have faced similar struggles and written about them can help too.
And sharing your work with the other folk in the group can build a feeling of safety and solidarity.
What is the course?
The course will be run by Rosie Alexander & Alison Miller for six Saturdays and contain lots of activities & opportunities to read and write.
You don’t need to have written before, all you need is a willingness to give it a go.
Why not come and see if you can learn to write and read your way through the Winter Blues and look towards Spring?
Where? The Blide Trust, 54 Victoria Street
When? 16th February
Time? 1.30pm-4pm
What next?
If you would like to book a place on the course then please contact Rosie or Alison. Rosie and Alison are also happy to talk to people who might be interested in the course before booking a place.
Contact:
Rosie Alexander e-mail: ro_alexander@hotmail.com
phone: 07835250745
Alison Miller e-mail: alisonjanemiller@gmail.com
phone: Kirkwall Library: 01856 873166
This course is free of charge to participants.
(We gratefully acknowledge the support of ‘See me’, Orkney Minds, the George Mackay Brown Fellowship, the Blide Trust, Orkney Library & Archives and Scottish Book Trust)
To the World
The course has grown out of a series of workshops which Rosie Alexander ran last year along with poet John Glenday.
Out of those workshops a book was produced, called To the World.
It contains poetry, prose and images from people struggling with the various knocks life delivers.
The poem below was written by Laura Grieve on a weekend workshop aimed at people with cancer.
This is it
The moment I knew
It was happening to me
The way it happened to her
Long ago
A chance moment
A chance movement
Quite unique
Had I ever stretched
Just in that way
And probed in just that place
Before
To soothe an itch
I'm sure I hadn't
I think to myself
Oh!
This is it
Happening to me
Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Sylvia Plath aged only thirty. She left behind a powerful body of work. The story of her life with fellow poet Ted Hughes and of her suicide after they split up have become the stuff of legend - and many hundreds of academic studies. Though she didn't survive the turbulent darkness that engulfed her, she wrote till the end of her life, poems that tried desperately to comprehend and express the anguish she felt.
This is winter, this is night, small love -
A sort of black horsehair, A rough, dumb country stuff Steeled with the sheen Of what green stars can make it to our gate ...
From By Candlelight
The Poem's the Thing
Two new poetry reading groups will start this week, one in Kirkwall and the
other in Stromness Library.
The Poem's the Thing
Wednesday 13 February
1.00-2.00 pm in Kirkwall Library
6.00-7.00 pm in Stromness Library
The groups will run on the second Wednesday of each month.
Put the dates in your diary!
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