Voices of Cudworth

03/02/2022

Just a bit of an update on where project is right now:

The adult group met weekly up until just before Christmas, at which point we had to stop our meetings due to Covid. We've been exploring different methods of writing, as well producing pieces of text. We're due to start meeting again next week - so keep your eyes on the page for progress & give us a shout if you'd like to join future sessions.

We have also started meeting with a youth group in Cudworth run by Jolly Good Communities. Using some of the same creative tools used with the adult group, we'll be working with the group to produce DIY zines that share something about their own unique perspective on life, the pandemic, or Cudworth as young people from the area.

We are also planning a public workshop for the next month or so, which will be open to anybody. So if you've been interested in getting involved but haven't managed to attend any of the sessions so far, this will be a great opportunity to come along & contribute to the project.

19/11/2021

Another great creative writing session this week at Cudworth Library. We were looking at the role of form in our writing & developed some pandemic writing around a daily ritual or routine that defined out covid experience. We'll post the exercise on here shortly, so anyone can have a go at it - watch this space!

The group is fluctuating slightly, so we've decided that if people are interested in joining us for the rest of the 8 weeks or even just for a one-off, you would be welcome to. Just send us a message on here first to let us know, and we can send you the materials for the session.

12/11/2021

Here's a pic of our second Voices of Cudworth writing workshop. As this week's session looked at the role that different senses can play in stimulating creativity, the group went over to Cudworth Park for some inspiration - doesn't it look beautiful at the moment?!

09/11/2021

Each week we'll share an exercise for those following us from their own spaces, we hope to collect more voices from Cudworth, more experience and stories so this is your chance to input. Have a look below and find a pen and paper.

04/11/2021

There are still places left on the writing workshops session, so If you're interested in joining us for these, please get in contact with us on here or email Lawrence Dodd on [email protected]

03/11/2021

Voices of Cudworth is a creative writing project funded by Cudworth Ward Alliance, which aims to explore the role of writing as an accessible medium to reflect and express thoughts and feelings experienced during the pandemic.

The pandemic has been a challenging time for all of us, & our lives have been changed in ways we could never have foreseen, yet many of us don't allow ourselves to truly reflect on this experience, & on the lessons and the hopes that have emerged from it. The aim of this project is to create a space to prompt this sharing & reflection.

We will do this through a set of workshops, where participants will explore different techniques which will support them to use writing as a reflective and expressive tool. We will also post some of these prompts/exercises on this page over the weeks, inviting the wider public of Cudworth to engage with the exercises, with the hope to initiate a wider process of creative reflection on the pandemic in the local community.

The project will then culminate in producing a book of these writings that will serve as a documentation of local experiences of Covid-19, as well as a public launch event in the new year.

03/11/2021

Yorkshire based poet laureate Simon Armitage penned this poem. Find a whole collection of works online

https://www.simonarmitage.com

Lockdown

And I couldn’t escape the waking dream
of infected fleas

in the warp and weft of soggy cloth
by the tailor’s hearth

in ye olde Eyam.
Then couldn’t un-see

the Boundary Stone,
that cock-eyed dice with its six dark holes,

thimbles brimming with vinegar wine
purging the plagued coins.

Which brought to mind the sorry story
of Emmott Syddall and Rowland Torre,

star-crossed lovers on either side
of the quarantine line

whose wordless courtship spanned the river
till she came no longer.

But slept again,
and dreamt this time

of the exiled yaksha sending word
to his lost wife on a passing cloud,

a cloud that followed an earthly map
of camel trails and cattle tracks,

streams like necklaces,
fan-tailed peacocks, painted elephants,

embroidered bedspreads
of meadows and hedges,

bamboo forests and snow-hatted peaks,
waterfalls, creeks,


the hieroglyphs of wide-winged cranes
and the glistening lotus flower after rain,

the air
hypnotically see-through, rare,

the journey a ponderous one at times, long and slow
but necessarily so.


Simon Armitage

Literary Agent DGA (David Godwin Associates) 2nd floor, 40 Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell, London EC1R 4RX 0207 240 9992 To enquire: [email protected]

03/11/2021

Ahead of our first session we thought we'd share a bit more about the project if you're interested in what we're going to do. And the structure of course you can read a bit more here.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AysjT9ibbbbjAb2T-cA_KgluLEaRlb3N/view?usp=sharing

We'll be sharing some writing we're inspired by or find interesting to let you begin imagining with us. Then each week we'll share an exercise you can do at home or wherever you are to feed back in and hopefully be collated early next year into a collective piece of publishing.