There is a visceral, unflinching eye at work in Fatbergs, that begins with the arresting title and continues throughout this collection, which ranges far as it examines human relationships in the complex societies and landscapes they inhabit.  Mbarushimana’s writes, ‘I choose to see you,’ and her lens doesn’t look away from what a body is in its life span, shapes and functions. Her words circle around the bone, skin and flesh, and this approach anchors the poems concerns back in the body to create a refreshingly corporeal narrative. The collection seeks to value the material body that houses a person, and the earth that houses that body. 

You can buy Fatbergs from Knives, Forks and Spoons Press

Stay at Home Festival Programme

Ruth Stacey, 12-1pm. Workshop: Writing Imagined Memoir Poems. Join renowned poet Ruth Stacey as she guides beginners and experienced writers alike in writing the life of a person from history. Please come to the workshop with a historical figure already in mind to write about! Join here: https://tinyurl.com/qqpshu6

Imagined Memoir writing prompts

Ekphrasis as a warm-up

Find a photograph or painting of your chosen historical figure, and if they don’t have one, that’s OK, find a picture of the costume typical of that time or home/place/landscape of that time period.

Now to warm up and get you into the mindset of your historical person, I want you to write an ekphrasis style poem draft responding to the picture.

Ekphrasis poems are an excellent first step into writing about someone.

I find myself returning to ekphrasis to help locate me in the right time period.

You can be clinical and observant, noting the details of the painting or photograph, and stay firmly in the frame of the image.

Or you can step out a little, expand the frame and imagine what is happening around the moment the painting or photograph happened.

You could voice the painter or photographer.

You could voice a creature in the picture, or personify an object in the scene.

Finally, try voicing the person themselves.

Using a piece of text within your poem

For this writing prompt find a small piece of text that the person wrote.

You could incorporate it within your poem. I used this technique when I wrote about Elizabeth I using a part of one of her own poems.

Or in a poem about Edward III’s wife Phillipa, I used a piece of text that was written by a princess assessing administrator sent to check out her suitability.

If your person left behind no written items, don’t worry, you can use a fragment of text relevant to that time period. For example, for my poem about Ealdgyth of Mercia, I used the Old English text Wulf and Eadwacer as a starting point. Although no part of that poem remains in mine, the feeling of two people being in different places remains and helped my structure.

For this prompt though I want you to use your text fragment to form a golden shovel poem. Info on how to do that here.

I used this technique to write an imagined memoir poem about Jane Morris, wife of William Morris, in my collection, I, Ursula.

Take your fragment and let it end each line. See how it changes your relationship with the fragment, as you voice your historical person in dialogue with their words or words written about them.

I ask my students, ‘Why do you want to be a writer?’ They offer up lots of good reasons, ranging from catharsis, compulsion and straightforward ambition. One thing that drives me is leaving something behind after you die. The thought that even if one poem is read, or one novel enjoyed, you never really die.

I still remember being scared as child about the thought of death and the nothingness of it. It was around the same age I decided what my future would be: a writer. I was reading books by authors long-dead, and as I read their books, they still lived. It was a simple plan. I will grow up and write something that will hopefully live on.

One of our own, Kieran Davis, a Worcester writer, died recently. There has been a lot of shock and tears at the news of his death; Worcester isn’t full of enough water to reflect the loss of him, even with the current floods filling our city like a lake. He was a much-loved person. Even in passing, as our relationship was, at open mics and brief snatches of conversation in pubs, Kieran always took the time to fill me full of confidence, to pass on good will and encouragement. Kieran always promoted and supported other writers.

Kieran promoting another writer on his website.

That is the way to live life: always do the generous and kind thing.

Kieran’s latest collection of poetry is full of the thought of what is left behind. He begins with an introduction discussing the title Legacy, and what that means to him. He packed the collection full of poems and reading them now is painful, but vital, because that is what Kieran wanted: his poems to live on long after him. He also had four splendid children that he adored, who are also his legacy.

Local spoken word night, 42, are cancelling the planned theme for Tuesday 25 February and will dedicate the evening to memories of Kieran Davis. Come along to hear poems by Kieran and his friends stories about him.

Kieran Davis, October 2017

Zinaida Yevgenyevna Serebriakova ‘At the Dressing Table’ 1909  One of the inspirations for the poem ‘Rose Red’ in I, Ursula

‘Overall “I, Ursula” is a chilling, memorable exploration of the darker side of the muse. She is stalked, hunted, desired and formed in other’s image, a body on which to project desires. Rarely does she get her own voice but here she contemplates the power dynamics in relationships and how she is used to create art, often to her own detriment. Despite the projection of delicacy and fragility, she has to remain strong with a will to survive. Ruth Stacey has created a powerful collection.’

To read the full review go HERE

The other painting by  Serebriakova  that gave me the character for ‘Rose Red’, Portrait of Olga Lanceray, 1910

Arthur Rackham’s picture Rose Red that first started the poem in my mind.

Ladybird version of the Bear Prince

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could. Louise Erdrich