A Journey - at Quarry Mount Primary School

 Sarah Andrews writes:

 

#James Nash, the poet commissioned by Headingley LitFest to work with youngsters in local primary schools, has been visiting Quarry Mount primary school for about a decade.  Each time he visits is different:  different year group, teacher, class or topic  This time it was the Second World War and the theme of a journey, leaving family in a targeted city for the safety of a place with no bombs.

 

As headteacher Rebecca Pettman confided, for some of the pupils this was a reality they have already experienced: a number of her pupils come from the middle East.  A sobering thought.

 

Evacuees was a theme that brought out “some brilliant creative writing, a lot of empathy and imagination, as well as some extraordinary lines of prose poetry.”   Class 5 teacher Kirsty Moleele (pictured with James) was just so impressed with the work that James had drawn out of the pupils with his work on setting a scene, getting her class to draft and edit, and sharing with first themselves and then with a whole school assembly which included a dozen or so parents. 

 

Personal journeys in courage for the youngsters too. We were warned that “Some lines are heart-breaking, get the tissues ready.”  The class was complimented on the bravery involved in sharing their work with each other and then the whole school, trying to find their 'playground voices' despite nerves.

 

Hopes, fears, terrors, and longing were evident in every poem. Lines like:

'I want peace to begin and the war to end'

'I miss my old life'

'Why does war even exist?'

'Freedom has gone away'

‘It was time to say goodbye to my life before, My happy memories of the past'

'I'm worried my dad will be hurt or killed'

'I can taste bitter depression in my freezing mouth as the sky is lit by the fires of the German bombs'

'I hug my mum as it may be the last hug I will get from her'

'Pain is all I know, children parted from their family'

 

These children are only nine or ten years old and some of the writing is clearly born out of experience. Writing poetry about difficult experiences in a collaborative 'safe space' like school can be healing.

 

 Every member of the class read out some or all of the lines they had crafted, with various degrees of growing confidence as shyness gave way to pride in achievement.  One boy, who finds reading a challenge, was supported by the trainee teacher and almost burst with pride as he read out his whole poem. While one girl, for whom English is her second language, glowed with pleasure as she contributed along with her classmates. Would the school want to do this again?  Loud sound of cheers and shouts of 'Yes!'

Thanks are given to Leeds City Council's Inner North West area management committee for funding this work once again.

 

 

Rubbish work at Weetwood Primary School

They say to beware the Ides of March but before Shakespeare's doomladen warning to Julius Caesar 15^th March was known for celebrating the first full moon of the year that falls in the middle of the month with drinking, picnics and festivities.

 

We partook of no drink, and the late snowfall outside certainly did not encourage outdoor feasting, but we did celebrate the poetry written by class 5 based on their trip to a rubbish recycling plant.  The class performed their original work in front of many of their parents, shyly at first and then with increasing aplomb. Indeed, there was a clamour to read all their verses after each child had read a selected verse. Joanne Parker, class teacher, was both delighted and stunned by the quality of the writing and the extraordinary self-confidence that some of her class unexpectedly showed. 

 

James Nash and Joanne Parker

“Dad, you've just got to come” was a common theme amongst the many parents waiting to be admitted to a tightly-packed class assembly with standing room only.  They agreed that their children had been excited about the workshops with James Nash, local writer and poet - and proud to show their writing and their performances to their families. One carer said “She struggled with reading before this but has absolutely grown in confidence” since her work on this topic. Another commented on the thought given to the vocabulary and metaphors her child had used, followig the rubbish to its end as ash and energy.

 

The fear of a blank page had been banished by inspiration, drafting, editing and creation of quality pieces of writing they were keen to share. New vocabulary was translated into powerful prose poems as we heard of jostling and ominous journeys by abandoned food and clothing tossed and tumbled into the dark bucket of doom.  Delivered to the jaws of  a menacing dragon and into the licking flames of his empty stomach.  Household goods assassinated by a sea of terror. Menacing and scavenging machines whose claws show no mercy.  Heated like a barbecue. Escape?  Hopeless! 

 

It was clear that not only had the youngsters really taken the concept of recycling to heart but that the message was most powerful through the medium of poetry. Reduce, reuse and recycle was never so eloquently expressed or understood.  “Three weeks ago I was an amazing hat but now ...”

 

Would Mrs Parker, class teacher, like to recycle this idea and do it again?  Absolutely!

 

Thanks are given to Leeds City Council's Inner North West area management committee for funding this work once again.

 

 

Heartline Writers - Phenomenal Woman

Poetry, stories and singing for International Women’s Day 

Richard Wilcocks writes:

In Headingley’s Heart Centre, the Shire Oak Hall was full. A Powerpoint display was beginning on the large screen, ready to inform those present of the names of poets and their poems, and the now-traditional table of home-made cakes was in position at the back of the audience. This event is well-established, an essential part of the local calendar. Liz McPherson introduced the proceedings.

 

                                                                                                                  Photo by Richard Wilcocks

First image on the screen was of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani activist who was shot in the head by the Taliban for publicly advocating education for women and girls, but who fortunately recovered from her wounds to become world famous. Karen Byrne had her in mind when she read her poem Afghan, which is in the style of a letter of protest – ‘I have to hide my face/ I have to forget my dreams’.

 

Eileen Neil read two poems. She acknowledged that she had been influenced by Maya Angelou in writing The Call, which contains a list of legendary women from a range of cultures. It ends with ‘They are coming – the Rainbow Generation’. She was inspired by a violin concerto by Michael Daugherty entitled Blue Elektra to write a poem with the same name. Its subject is Amelia Earhart, mysteriously lost somewhere in the Pacific while trying to circumnavigate the world in 1937.

 

Cate Anderson gave us another true story entitled Refuge, which emerged from her extensive research. This was full of information (and reminders) about what it was like in 1971 in England, when people tended to make statements like ‘Marriage is the high point of a woman’s life’ while not doing much of a practical nature about domestic violence. Activist Erin Pizzey was mentioned as a pioneer, the founder of a domestic violence shelter in a two-bed derelict house in West London, which expanded and led to the establishment of many others.

 

Jackie Parsons’s poem Chocolate Cakes and Atom Bombs provided us with the fascinating image of the nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer sitting in a café in Los Alamos, his mouth full of the cake sold by the owner, Edith Warner. This was followed by Woman, a memoir poem about her beloved nan.

 

Bill Fitzsimons presented us with his poem Greta, about the famous environmental campaigner. Her surname, according to Bill, should be ‘Thunderberg’. His other poem was Universal Mother, about what mothers have to endure: ‘the price is paid by woman’.

 

Marie Paule Sheard took us to India for her fact-packed Story of Mrs Phule and Fatima Sheikh. These were two nineteenth-century campaigners who challenged ancient beliefs and customs connected with Caste and religion, when ‘the only value of women was the dowry and the siring of boys’’.

 

                                                                                             Photo by Richard Wilcocks

Acapella group Harissa (pictured above) then stepped forward, ten well-rehearsed women. In amongst folk songs, they sang a beautiful madrigal composed by John Wilbye in the late sixteenth century. That must have taken some special rehearsing! With an excellent balance of high and low voices, it was fit for a queen, as it had to be four centuries ago.

 

Linda Marshall, well-known to Headingley LitFest and to poetry groups far and wide, appeared on the screen as she was unable to be present. The Coat was about seemingly ordinary women who are really extraordinary, and The New Housekeeper is an amusing account of a rebellious woman who causes havoc, changing the locks and ‘calling up her cavalry of cutlery’.

 

Barbara Lawton presented an account of the life of Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, born in Whitechapel, London in 1836. She was faced with all the usual prejudices when she was wanting to become a doctor, but she eventually made it, founding a hospital for women staffed by women near Euston Station.

 

Myrna Moore’s poem Nanny of the Maroons, about a key rebel woman in Jamaica’s history, begins with the line ‘She grabbed a cudgel’ and ends with ‘She likkle but she Tallawah’, an expression which can be used for the island of Jamaica as well. Tallawah is patois for strong. The second poem was Bertha, the ‘mad woman in the attic’ in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, who was brought to England from the Caribbean. Her actual name, according to Jean Rhys’s 1966 novel The Wide Sargasso Sea is Antoinette, and the poet adopts her voice to describe her life with Rochester ‘guarded like an escaped prisoner’.

 

Dru Long took us to Iran in Woman Life Freedom, mindful of the brave women there who resist their theocratic government’s harsh laws about wearing head coverings. She connected the women who have died at the hands of the ‘morality police’  with famous suffragettes of the early twentieth century who died for the cause, like Emily Davison in 1913.

 

Malcolm Henshall was influenced in writing his poem Mother and Child by his professional life as a Special School teacher before he retired. Many of the parents he encountered were single mothers. He admitted worrying about his ability to write poetry, but he needn’t have, because his play with the words tears, fears and cares was terrific, the rhymes and repetitions working well. His Angels, a short piece about nurses, drew plenty of applause: ‘applause don’t pay the bills’.

 

Liz McPherson returned for the final reading. This is Reconstruction was a moving poem about her grandma, remembered as ‘clicking her teeth like knitting needles’. The second poem Vade Mecum was like a book of memories, rather confessional but ‘not just about me’. She revealed that she has not been to actual confession for fifty years. I can only gasp.

 

Harissa came back to finish off an enjoyably mind-stimulating morning show with Girls just wanna have fun. Surely we don’t have to wait another year for something like this.

 

 

 

'Where I live' at Shire Oak Primary School

The Poet’s Blog

It was World Book Day and I felt seriously underdressed. I  was at Shire Oak Primary School ,  in Year 2’s classroom and I was surrounded by young people dressed as favourite characters from books.   All the children had made such an effort, including Helen Barley the class teacher (pictured) who was in  dragon costume.

 

It was my final visit to the class, and we were about to get ready to share our work.

In previous sessions we had used the theme of ‘Where We Live’ to talk about the houses we lived in,  favourite buildings in Headingley and even favourite trees.  The enthusiasm of the children was boundless.  In no time they had written their first ideas down and many of them had read their writing out to the whole class. 

 

We then talked about how to turn those initial ideas into a first draft of a poem by choosing their best lines and deciding on the best order to put them in. I showed them what I had done to turn my first ideas into a poem, knowing in my heart of hearts that some of the children’s writing, in its freshness and originality, would outstrip my own 

 

We decided together that poems did not have to rhyme but that it was sometimes effective to have a rhythm running through them.

 

‘I would take a picture of everything’ one young poet began their writing,

 and another wrote

 

‘my house has a cat

That is so red that

It warms me up

Every time I see him’.

 

And I have to pinch myself to remember that my young poets are only six or seven years old.

 

On this final session we talk about what we have learned together, before finishing off our poems and getting ready to have them recorded so that parents can see what their children have achieved.  They are very keen to share their work, particularly as they feel so proud of what they have written.

 

One by one read some the whole poem or some  a favourite line from their writing.  They read beautifully, and I’m left with a wonderfully inspired feeling, with the final line of one poem still in my head as I walk home,

 

‘My favorite tree

Is my apple tree in my back garden,

It welcomes me with a smile.’

 

#James Nash 3^rd March 2023

 

Wild Weather at Spring Bank

 Sally Bavage writes: 

Not a forecast but a foretaste as I was gusted into reception.  Poetry written by year 3 this week provided all the considerations of weather you could want.  Once again James Nash, local writer and poet, led the youngsters to explore their creativity and consider, write, edit and share their own writing, first amongst themselves and then as a finale in front of the whole school and around thirty parents and grandparents.  At age seven or eight years old, would you have been confident doing that?!

 

They mostly were and did.  Yes, a few nerves beforehand and the odd wobbling lip, but aplomb took over and you'd never have guessed it from the confidence with which these petite poets read out their work to the audience. Some read out all their work, some read a snippet to give us a taste of their writing; all of them gave us imagery and occasionally a glimpse of the inner thespian as they relished their moment in the sun.  Sorry, couldn't resist that.

 

It's really a privilege to see how these pupils rise to the challenge and enjoy writing and declaiming their own work.  The secret is that this project allows them to write about what interests them, and demonstrate what they can do – not quite always the case under the national curriculum.  This year group have had a hard time recently; you might call them the 'pandemic generation' as most of their schooling has been disrupted by absence and lack of continuity. 

Offering a free-flowing project to use poetry to inspire a joy in using the written word to express original ideas was a splendid gift, said class teacher Mrs Baruah.  She continued, “It's such a joy to see how they have risen to this challenge throughout this week as they contributed ideas, personal viewpoints and a chance to develop their vocabulary.  They gave us such trust.” 

 

Class teaching assistant Adam Bickerdike added, “It has been so very rewarding to see how some pupils have really surprised us with their creativity and willingness to engage, even from the confines of autism.”   Some of the parents and grandparents also confided just how delighted they were to have been invited by children both excited and nervous.It was fun,” Working with a real poet” and  “Poems don't have to rhyme” were some of many comments offered by the class. 

The project will now produce an anthology of all their work, even some contributions from the parents who were invited back to the classroom after the assembly (they all squeezed in somehow, delighted to be asked.)  They were then challenged to write some lines of their own to add to the anthology!  So the legacy of this work lives on, not just with the development of the creative writing process but a collection of the work and a talking point with parents and grandparents, some of whom expressed a desire to continue to follow up the poetry spark that had been ignited. 

Grateful thanks to the Inner North West area management committee of Leeds City Council, especially local councillors, who granted the funding for this work.

 

Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts

 

Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts  …

… they say, but at Ireland Wood primary school Apollo brought enchantment and poetic delight.  A large plaster bust of the Greek god served up inspiration and the starting point for creative writing of original poetry, carefully edited and redrafted to produce honed and thoughtful poems.  Live at the Apollo, reimagined.

Local writer and poet James Nash worked his own magic once again with sixty youngters in year 6 in his series of poetry workshops culminating in a performance assembly in front of the classes in year 5.  Oh, and they were videoed so all parents have access to the work that was produced.  Quite intimidating if you're only ten years old, and you have to read out some or all of your poem to the listening classes, teachers, support assistants and visitors present in the school hall.

 

Occasionally the nerves showed – shaking papers and quavering voices – but most stepped up to the microphone and declaimed their own words with brio and pride.  Even though some had to stoop to reach the fixed microphone and others reach up to ensure their words, literally their own words, were heard. The quality of the vocabulary, the empathy and immersion in the world of ancient Athens was astonishing.  

 

The effort that the school put into arranging James' workshops and in the final assembly showed the strength of their commitment to the vale of the work.  As year 6 class teacher Ms Pliener said, “My pupils have been on a real journey, gaining in confidence and excitement and volunteering en masse to read the whole of their poem to the assembly.”  Mr Burgess, who teaches the parallel class, also commented that “It's so important for youngsters to learn how to have the confidence to speak in public as it's so important in any aspect of life and work.”

 

The pupils first learned from James that Apollo was the god of archery, music & dance, truth & prophecy, healing & diseases, the Sun & light as well as the god of poetry.  Plenty there to inspire them - and it showed in the range of comments about him and his work. We heard of golden arrows, the Creator of Remedies,  the bustle of Athens, and the smell the olive trees that surrounded the city.

 

Profound handicap did not stop two boys from reading out their own work – it would have been very difficult to stop them, I think – and one girl who had been panicking before the assembly then took to the centre stage to read her work with aplomb.  These experiences were observed in rapt attention by the year five pupils in the audience, so the value of this work just keeps on giving. As Ms Blair, a learning support assistant said, “I have seen confidence of some of the most nervous members of the class just shoot through the roof.  It's an absolute joy.” There was high praise too from Ms Kerr, another learning support assistant, for the way James held the attention of the youngsters and she commented that she too had got a lot out of his work.  Yet another gift from a Greek god – Apollo, not James!

 

Just one example of so many; this from a god reflecting  on life 2000 years later:

 

I am Apollo

 

I am Apollo

The graceful god of music and dance,

The all-needed sun and light,

Future, truth and prophecy.

 

I still hear shout of praise for me,

Smell the sacrifices in the temples

And the taste of sweet success,

For I protected their young.

 

Oh, the music I played for them

On my golden lyre

For my beauty they could not resist,

They could not resist, they could not resist.

 

As I sat atop Mount Olympus,

Foreseeing the future,

I thought about what more to do.

Was there any more to be done?

 

So now as I sit on a dusty windowsill,

The sun bathing me in light, I think about what would happen

If I were never born.

 

Comments from the youngsters involved included:

It was great to be able to ask questions of a Real Writer

It's really useful to me as I now plan to be a writer

It's really good to share your work with others as it builds your confidence

It was fun!

 

Headingley LitFest is very grateful for the funding to complete this work, granted once again by the Inner North West Area Community Committee.