Poetry workshops funded by Quartet Community Foundation
Venue: Brentry Church Hall
Dates: 19th December 2008, 16th 23rd and 30th January, 13th and 20th
February, 6th and 9th March 2009
Workshop leader: Claire Williamson
Participants, now to be known as the Firebird Poets:
Jenny Stafford, Jenny Redlar, Brenda Cook, Claude Rimmer, Steve
Knight, Brenda Carr, Penny Goater, Emily Pamon
How we worked together, written by the group:
How we work together is teamwork. We all have different strengths and
we come together and share it, so that we can all say what we think and
feel. And Claire writes it down.
First of all, we talk about what we are going to write about, we make
notes, share ideas and write them down. Claire writes on a flipchart for
us and then we don’t have to worry about writing and spelling, we can
just think about what we want to say: we create together.
With all the words, it is like a puzzle, making a poem. You have to think
of words and work things out in your head. A poem is like a plan and you
have to care for it. Claire’s role is to bring her poet’s head to all our
notes, ideas and thoughts and help us to order them, put them into a
form. We think about good words to use together, we think about
vocabulary. We read what we have written, Jenny is a good reader and
she reads the poems we make so we can hear how it sounds. We make
changes until the poem feels right.
With poetry, some kind of excitement comes into your body and you
must take it seriously.
With The Tempest poetry, we look at the small parts of the story and
think about it and understand it for ourselves. It is like studying and when
we make the poem the small parts come together and we make it bigger
again. When we look at people in the story of The Tempest, we put on
their shoes to help us understand them. We channel our experiences
into the people in The Tempest, so that we can feel like them and
understand them. We express our feelings through them.
What we want to do
We talked about how we can share our work with others. This is what we
want to do next:
 Continue to meet and work together. It is sad that the sessions
have finished.
 Share and continue our dialogue with Firebird Theatre
 all the work to go on Firebird website when it is done
 do a workshop with students at St Brendan’s Sixth Form College
 Perform at Poetry Festival in September 2010
 Make a book
 Perform poetry at Bristol Old Vic alongside performances of The
Tempest
What we need to do next:
 We would like to get more funding to do some more sessions
together. We can ask Quartet if they would consider funding us
again, also look for other sources of funding.
 We need to talk to Poetry Can and see if they can support our
poetry
Comments from Firebird Theatre
Our aim with these workshops was to bring people together who had
worked together in the past, approximately five years ago. They are in
the main, an elderly group of disabled people with learning difficulties
who used to write together and perform with Portway Players (Firebird
Theatre) in the past before they retired. For these sessions they were
joined by Emily Pamon, a Deaf woman and Penny Goater, Jenny
Stafford and Steve Knight from Firebird Theatre. Firebird is really excited
that it can involve disabled people in different ways. For instance, Emily
lives in Derby, and was involved via emails and us sending her the notes
from each session.
We would like to develop these sessions as described above. There has
been a huge interest that has developed over the weeks that the group
have been working together. For example, both Bristol Old Vic and St
Brendan’s College would like workshops/performances around the
process and how the poets work together and how Firebird Theatre
translates the poetry into theatre.
There is obviously a link between the poets and Firebird Theatre but the
poets’ work does stand alone and we are now looking to share the
poetry in its own right, with the wider community.
The poems, unless accredited individually these are written by the
group as a whole. There is a much longer report that includes the poets’
notes alongside the poetry.
The Tempest Poetry
Shell song
See a pink shell, shaped like a spiral
resting on a long white beach
Put it to your ear
then you will hear
the shell song:
Drifting out far away
A different beach each different day
Waves splashing over
In the turning tide there’s danger
It seems true and real
As the shell that you feel
Like a dream come true
But that’s magic for you
Shadow by Emily Pamon
Where do you go when you leave me at night?
Leave me alone in the black
Do you visit the stars, fly out through the rain?
If you do, why do you come back?
You're always there when we're gathering sticks
Or gazing along down our coast
You're faithful and watchful, always at my side
Except when I need you the most.
When you are here, I talk to myself
But you know I am talking to you
When you are gone, my thoughts all go wrong
Who knows if the sun will break through?
Where do you go when you leave me at night?
Is it a magical place?
Our land once was magic, it once was our home
Now it knows not its own face.
Miranda’s song
Listen to me, daddy,
You gave me a name
You called me Miranda
But you won’t play the game!
Nose stuck in a book
You won’t come to play
I’m your little princess
But you send me away.
Make me tall on your shoulder
Please sing me a song
I’m alone on an island
Father and daughter belong...
Together
The nurses’ song
We’ve got the knack to care for you
And to make you happy
Cuddle you and kiss you
Even change your nappies
Bounce you
Burp you
Pat you
And tickle
Blow raspberries
Lullaby for you:
Coo Coo Coo
Sing hush and go to sleep, little one,
While we rock you, gently rock
We cannot love you like our own
But bless your tiny cotton socks
Strum our lips with our fingers
Bounce you on our knees
Stay close by your cradle
Until you fall asleep
Before she died
Before she died
My mother taught me
Everything:
How to tip-up coconuts
to drink the cool, clear milk
how to climb a palm tree
with no ropes to hold me
how to fish with my hands
tickle tummies of snappy crabs
and how to plait palm bark into nets
And for company we always had
the trickle of fresh water falls
love birds of paradise calls
mosquito and hummingbird hums
thunder of storms before they come
Before she died my mother taught me everything
How to peel oranges and mangoes
Pop bananas from their skins so
I never felt empty
and never went hungry
But I did feel lonely
like the parting of two seas
When my mother died on me
Without company I’d always had
I dug her grave with my bare hands
Just the howling of wind in palms
as I held her the last time in my arms
and marked her place with a circle of empty shells
Ariel – Spirit of the Island
I’m a lonely island
soft silence of sand
the splash of a seabird
swallowing absence of words
or shallow wind in leaves
in shadowy dark trees
I’m humid sticky air
washed through seaweed’s hair
or the elegance of nymphs
with sea-salt rinsed
or menacing black clouds
the thunder’s deep growl
I’m the moon in a jellyfish
a shooting star’s swish
Or the pinch of a crab
the tiddlers they grab
or the island’s beauty
peace
tranquility
or clamouring
stormy
the island and me
were born together, you see
Sycorax on the Island
The boat gets smaller and smaller and smaller
The fear gets bigger and bigger and bigger
What will I eat, no food on this beach?
What will I drink? So tired I can’t think
My mouth tastes of salt
My tummy somersaults
Legs weak and weary
Eyes sore and bleary
This body needs to rest
The island fades as my knees give way
Voices gallop like a hundred hooves
Noises scratch like tumbling pebbles
Howls haunt like storms in trees
Chatter clatters like swearing parrots, say
“My mouth tastes of salt
My tummy somersaults
Legs weak and weary
Eyes sore and bleary
This body needs to rest.”
I cannot live with these irritating pests!
The milk in my body
Is just for my baby
Not for anyone else...
This seahorse inside me
Has to survive me
To continue the line
No-one can rewind
The soul and the blood
of a mother’s love
Silence the spirit of this island!
Caliban on the arrival of Prospero and Miranda
The boat got bigger and bigger and bigger
The faces got closer and closer and closer
Friends or foe?
I just didn’t know
Moths in my stomach
fluttered like bats
Doubts in my bones
shivered like rats
Friends or foe? I just didn’t know
Rubbing sticks I made a (driftwood) fire
to send a signal
between the rocks
I guided the vessel.
I filled a jellyfish skin
that I’d cleansed of sting
with (fresh) water from my special well
deep in my secret dell.
With the luminescent skin
I showed them the safe way in:
A beautiful child, angelic and mild
Her ageing father – no sign of a mother A sadness I shared
To have no mother there.
I used my necklace of shells
to quench their thirst
and welcomed these visitors
as they were my first.
I washed the man’s salty lips
with a freshwater kiss
and bathed his sun burnt sores
with coconut milk poured from crab claws.
I was his nurse
his pains I reversed
Until he could stand
On Mother Nature’s land.
Caliban to Miranda
Miranda come share
My lonely secret island
From glimmering diamond sea
To views from the palm trees
All I have is yours
from berries to paw-paws
from pineapples to nuts
from oysters I cut
the precious pearls
tiny moons for my girl
These are the thoughts of Sycorax when she is being rowed to the island as a
prisoner on a large boat, surrounded by solders and heavily pregnant. It is an
attempt to give reasons for our feelings that Caliban and his mother are not the
evil, unpleasant characters we are led to believe in ‘The Tempest’. It echoes
images from Before She Died and uses some of the Company’s ideas about
what the island would be like:
I Must Remember
by Penny Goater
I must remember who I am –
I am Sycorax, strong and brave.
I have learning and wisdom forbidden
To women in my land
So I am banished, never to return;
Parted from my lover, my dearest,
The father of my child-to-be,
Who is accused of being the Devil
And will be put to death by evil men.
I curse them for it, silently –
I will not speak.
I despise them for their superstition
And prejudice.
I am Sycorax, brave and strong.
They accuse me of being Sycorax
The Witch, foul hag, sorceress,
Yet I am no such thing.
I am a woman – I have womanly powers
And this is why they fear me.
I know which plants can heal
And which can harm;
I have ‘an understanding’ with Nature.
These gifts condemn me
In the eyes of ignorant men
And I am banished to a distant shore.
What is this island?
An island of spirits,
Set apart, feared, lonely.
I do not fear it – I will make it mine
And use it to my advantage;
For my child will be born there
And the island will be his when I am gone.
I will teach him
To find freshwater pools,
To weave fishing nets,
To sharpen spears,
To peel succulent fruits
And snap bananas from their skins.
We will play
With pearly shells,
Build sandy castles,
Chase fluttery butterflies
And listen to birdsong.
We will laugh
At monkey-chatter,
Play hide-and-seek,
Draw pictures in the sand
And shelter from storms together.
He will be my comfort and my joy
And I will love him always.
I must remember who I am –
I am Sycorax, strong and brave.
I will not show fear and I will not be afraid.
I will embrace the island,
Subdue its spirits,
Protect my child
And survive.
Continuing from Caliban to Miranda:
Miranda, as darkness falls
come near and fold
me into your arms
as I fall for your charms
your long dark wavy hair
the lightness of the clothes you wear
my island reflected in your silky skin
open your arms and let me in
Put your father’s doll behind you
So my fragile heart can find you
(Miranda to Caliban)
Caliban, we’ve grown together
We’ll be friends forever and ever
Twin footprints in the sand
We share this moonlit star-struck land
I open my arms to let you in
I want to feel you skin to skin
Caliban come share
my love and my care
I’ll teach you my words
In your mouth they are heard
My sound is your sound
Which we pass round and round
like the circle of pearls
that make me your girl
Our hearts whisper
as we grow fonder
and fall into the silence
of your shared enjoyment
our eyes shine from afar
under the brightest star
(Prospero to Caliban)
Stop dead!
Caliban
You’re way over your head
You’re a scrounge
You’re scum.
From no family
you come
Your rough scaly skin
will tear my daughter in sin.
Your long finger nails
are like claws to a veil
Hands off
Caliban
You’re not a man
but a slave, the servant I made by my grace only
do you survive on this island
Never
Caliban
will you put your sandy hands
on Miranda, so fair
don’t even touch a strand of her hair!
Miranda
I have forgotten myself
Drifted far away
from a world full of wealth
where, reflected in a mirror
I see another self much clearer
than my image distorted here in water:
My clothes embroidered in royal blue
with golden silks threaded through;
My maid has woven my shiny hair
with pearls from oceans deep and rare;
The marble walls echo with songbirds
and from the garden fountains are heard
playing on cool blue mountain-fed waters.
This is the portrait of a duke’s daughter
awoken by a memory of a hundred bells
and a world a million miles away…
Prospero
Miranda, remember our ways
Back in Milan, your early days
I’ll help you remember
My hopes for your future
Like every father from Italy’s shores
I wish you not just happiness, but so much more
I can see you on your wedding day
getting married the traditional way
Crowned with sapphires, rubies and emeralds
A fanfare of golden trumpets that heralds
the beautiful bride and her father’s arrival
our arms linked, you: virginal, bridal.
For I would search the world to choose
a suitable match, if I must lose you….
Fantasy by Emily Pamon
The sea is a fantasy
An illusion of majesty
Everything bends to the turn of the tide
Circling
Touching all beaches
Calling all creatures
Waves look the same, but they're different inside
Calm
The water is calm
How could it harm?
A bolt from above, the water transforms
Reborn
Cresting high, clawing low
Doom above and dread below
From soft-tickle ripple to sulphurous storm
Real
What is real to the sea?
What truth can there be
When no laws govern the ocean's path?
Dream
I am dreaming the sea
Or is the sea dreaming me?