Tuesday 14 July 2009

poetry busking


They're right you know, there's always something new to learn! I had never come across this idea till last Saturday at the Kirkstall Festival in Leeds. You could 'buy' a poem for a £1, that is you could have a poem written for just £1. Well, I thought that as I had asked for a sonnet that £2 would be more like it (big spender!). The stall was run by Leeds Combined Arts - www.leedscombinedarts.org.uk - an organisation I hadn't heard of before either and the poet was a young man called Ted Hockin.

You could go back in half an hour and get your poem. In fact a friend had pointed me in the direction of the stall and I was there when she collected her poem, and it was a cracker! However as I don't write that fast I thought it unreasonable to ask him, so he is going to email the poem to me.

I wonder if this is a new thing and I'm just slow to get in the swing of things, or maybe it's even been going a while. Might be a way of bringing in some cash mightn't it? Would be pennies in my case as I am not what would be called a fast writer. At least I need a lot of thinking time before I get pen to paper, or in my case finger to keyboard.

Things are hotting up on the Lancaster online course though and I'm feeling rather behind - you can't just wait for inspiration when you have deadlines. And that was one of the reasons I enrolled for it so I have no excuse there ...

At leat I have a short story plotted out before I even began it and I haven't always done it that way. Just started and then see what would happen usually.

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