Ink Slingers Creative Writing Hour

Finding myself with a spare hour yesterday, Saturday, in Dublin and having mentioned the Irish Writers' Centre here I dropped in and joined the free Ink Slingers Creative Writing Hour there 1.30-2.30. A most useful and enjoyable experience.

There were about twenty participants, none of whom I knew and the facilitator/teacher was Sarah Maria Griffin who contributed a poem to the latest Boyne Berries though I didn't realise that until I came home. Her poem was called It's not cool to be broody at 23.

Sarah's first collection of poetry, Follies, was published by Lapwing in April last year. During 2011 she was sent to New York was part of Culture Ireland’s ‘Imagine Ireland’ initiative, to represent contemporary Irish performance poetry as part of the Glór Sessions. She is currently Writer-in-Residence at Collinstown Community College, Clondalkin.

The format of the workshop was simple. Sarah gave a writing prompt, participants wrote for roughly half an hour and then some read their efforts and Sarah commented.

The prompt was: use something worn by a fellow participant as a starting point for a poem or story. I used a crucifix which was worn by a lady and wrote a poem, remembering being in a huge religious goods "supermarket" in Turlock, California and though the place was full of crosses there wasn't a crucifix to be seen. These first two lines came out:
She specified a crucifix not a cross
"The body", she explained, "that's the difference"

Sarah's response to the readings was immediate and great, picking out the positive in each and suggesting development in some cases. Was that story about the old coat based on my coat I wonder?

Sarah will be participating in the 2012 Cúirt Over The Edge showcase reading takes place as part of this year's Cúirt International Festival of Literature at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway on Friday, April 27th, 3:00pm.

I understand next Saturday will be Sarah's last day as facilitator of the Ink Slingers Workshop. It continues after that with a new facilitator and the website will have the full information.