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Nudge # 13 Dad’s Slideshow

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Slideshow-cvPoet and publisher Di Slaney’s debut pamphlet from Stonewood Press, Dad’s Slideshow, will be launched 11th April. We’ve asked her to give us a writing nudge for you. Here it is.

My dad is a shy, unassuming man who currently feels a little uncomfortable at the attention surrounding the arrival of my new pamphlet collection ‘Dad’s slideshow’, particularly as I’ve ‘borrowed’ his voice to create several of the poems.

Nudge # 13

Find a photo taken either by your dad, or of your dad. Or remember one that you know well, and hold that in your mind’s eye. Now write a poem as your dad, at that exact moment in time when the photo was taken and the shutter clicked. What is he thinking? Who or what is he looking at? Who is he talking to? What does he do next? What did he do before? Be unexpected – this version of a visual truth is up to you. I won’t tell him if you don’t …

– Di

(from Brittle Star editors – you can also use this nudge to write stories)

Nudge # 9 One Hundred Years

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Photo: J Gabbitas

Photo: J Gabbitas

I found this writing tip on Twitter from @Jill_Jepson. I liked it. It made me think about the space around me and how it exists throughout time. I liked it so much I thought it would work nicely as a writing nudge – but with a bit of a tweak; Jill asks us to imagine the spot 100 years in the past. But what about 100 years in the future?

 

Nudge #9 One hundred years

Go to a park. Find a beautiful spot. Imagine the spot 100 years ago, or 100 years from now. Write.

Nudge # 8 – Move away from the adjective…

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image: Martin Parker

image: Martin Parker

Adjectives.

Write 16 lines (or a good-sized paragraph) on the subject of a building (any kind of building is fine)

Use no more than 5 adjectives.

Try to avoid using adjectives for colour, temperature and texture (e.g. ‘ruddy cheeks’, ‘blistering heat’, ‘rough cloth’) instead try to find a different way of evoking the image or feeling.

Have fun!

 

Here’s an example of a few choice adjectives, working well:

From A Bird Came Down by Emily Dickinson

“A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.”