Mosaic’s next meeting is this Wednesday 20th November and will be a critiquing session. If you have a poem for feedback please bring copies. We meet 7pm in the Firstsite cafe and move to a meeting room 7.30pm.
The ‘Beyond Plastic’ exhibition – featuring poems by Mosaic – has now finished but for anyone who didn’t make it there or to revisit, check out Michele Webber’s vlog.
Our next meeting will be a workshop – details below. We will meet at the Firstsite café Wednesday19th June at 7pm and the workshop (details below) will start at 7.30pm in one of the meeting rooms.
Turning Japanese
Learn more about the art of Haiku poetry and how to improve your short form poems. The workshop will also provide an introduction to haibun, a combination of haiku and prose. This powerful literary form was popularised by the famous Matsuo Basho in ancient Japan.
There will be plenty of opportunities to write haiku in the workshop, and, if time allows, a short haibun.
Biog.
Dr. Tim Gardiner is a professional ecologist, poet and children’s author from Manningtree. His haiku have been published all over the world (including Japan), translated into 5 languages, and widely anthologised. His first collection of Haiku, On The Edge, was published by Brambly Books in 2017, while his debut haibun collection, The Flintknapper’s Ghost, was released by Alba Publishing in 2018.
Copies will be available for sale.
“The McLellan Poetry Prize is awarded by the Arran Theatre and Arts Trust as part of the annual McLellan Arts Festival.
Now in its thirteenth year, past judges have included Kathleen Jamie, Robert Crawford, Jackie Kay, Peter and Ann Sansom, Michael Laskey, Simon Armitage, David Constantine, Maura Dooley and Sinéad Morrissey.
The judge for this year will be Sean O’Brien.”
In the beginning, we focused on Wilfred Owen, his poetry and his death on the Sambre-Oise Canal in Ors on the Western Front in November 1918. This was because we were fortunate to be invited via Art Connexions, Lille, in 2010, to the initial stages of the re-imagining of La Maison Forestiere by the British sculptor, Simon Patterson. This house where Owen and fellow soldiers from the Manchesters’ spent their last night, just outside the village of Ors, is now a celebration of the poet’s life and work. It was the inclusion of an outside performance space in the plans which inspired our thinking about commissioning a poetry project to take advantage of this in the future.
We were grateful to the Suffolk Branch of the Western Front Association for donating seed funding, Mosaic Stanza, and Poetry Wivenhoe, to whom proceeds would be donated to further community poetry activities. We began by commissioning mainly local poets to submit work on the general theme of ‘Conflict’ and we also invited interested students on the M.A. Fine Art course at Colchester Institute to choose a poem from the final selection and respond with an illustration. The resulting anthology, edited by Stephen Boyce of Winchester Poetry Festival, so too have the doves gone (Jardine Press), was published in 2014 to coincide with the outbreak of hostilities a hundred years previously.
To commemorate the ending of the War in 1918, we commissioned a further anthology on the theme of ‘Reconciliation’ from as many of the original poets as possible. Towards the Light was published in 2018 and includes translations of some of the poems into French, German and Italian, in the spirit of reconciliation. This anthology was edited by Vivien Whelpton, an expert in the poetry of the First World War, and author of the acclaimed biography, Richard Aldington, Poet, Soldier and Lover. Proceeds from the sale of Towards the Light are to be donated to Colchester Refugee Action.
The Project was brought to a fitting conclusion at La Maison Forestiere, in the performance space, as we had originally envisaged, by a reading on November 5th from both anthologies by some of the contributing poets, with the support of the editors, as part of a Battle Honours Tour, Wilfred Owen on the Western Front. This reading followed a moving ceremony at Owen’s graveside where a bagpipe lament was played, a German bugle owned by Owen sounded the last post, and there were readings of his poems. This was broadcast live by the B.B.C. on Armistice Day.
A list of events associated with the Project follows. It has been an amazing few years and our grateful thanks go to all those, especially the poets, who made it possible.
A few, too few for drums and yells
May creep back, silent, to village wells . . .
Wilfred Owen, The send-off
Pam Job and Judith Wolton
Readings
2014
2018
Pam Job’s poem, The Parcel, written for so too have the doves gone, was chosen to be read at Ipswich Remembers, a multi media event held at The Corn Exchange in March to mark the end of the First World War.
This poem has subsequently been set to music, together with poems by Siegfried Sassoon and Carl Sandburg, by the tenor and composer Tom Randle and it will receive its world premiere perfomance by Ipswich Choral Society at Snape Maltings in April 2019.
Workshops
The following poetry workshops based around the anthologies were held over the 4 years:
We have had an interesting year with some great events and changes of venue.
From January we will continue to meet on the third Wednesday of the month but will be renting a room at Firstsite 7-9pm. This means we will need to contribute £3 each per session to cover our room charges but we will be meeting in a lovely quiet place and in the centre of Colchester’s cultural quarter. The first meeting of the year will be on January 16th and will be a critiquing session so if you have a poem you’d like to share please bring copies. If you have written a poem based on the last workshop led by Sheena and Judith you might like to share this.
Future meeting dates are at https://mosaicpoetry.wordpress.com/about/
Our joint project with RAQs Media Collective (photos below) produced some very high quality poetry and our performance as part of the Theory Opera on December 8th was well attended and appreciated. Many thanks to Karen and Dave for producing a pamphlet and programme of the event. I felt very proud of our contribution and the effort and commitment of all who took part. Firstsite have invited us to respond to any future exhibitions and would host a presentation.
All good wishes for Christmas and the New Year.
Sheena Clover
Please note the change of venue for our next meeting 21st November – we will be in a Firstsite meeting room 7-9pm. We will be starting the meeting at 7pm.
We will either have a workshop on haiku and / or Japanese types of poetry run by Tim Gardiner or a workshop from Sheena.
Hope to see you there.
Not Yet At Ease, 2018. Courtesy Raqs Media Collective and Frith Street Gallery
Join us at Firstsite (8th December 3pm) for an afternoon of performance with poetry and dance from Colchester-based Flux Dance Collective and Mosaic poetry group, who will be responding to the themes of Firstsite’s current exhibition Not Yet At Ease. The performances will be alongside a presentation by Professor Michael Roper from the University of Essex, whose talk will reveal the long-term emotional legacies of the First World War.
This event is part of Firstsite’s Theory Opera programme, a fascinating series of public events that brings together different stories, ideas and experiences in response to Firstsite’s exhibition Not Yet At Ease – a major commission by internationally renowned Delhi-based artists Raqs Media Collective exploring the interlinked histories of war, poetry and mental health.
Tickets for this, and all of the Theory Opera events, are £8 (standard) / £5 (concession). Half of all ticket sales will be donated to Combat Stress, the UK’s leading charity for veteran’s mental health.
Find out more and book your tickets via this link: https://www.firstsite.uk/whats-on/theory-opera-emotional-legacies/
MOSAIC POETRY WORKSHOP
Wednesday 19th September at 7.30 pm
The Castle Pub, Colchester
I would like to explore the quality of stillness in a poem.
The simplicity of nothing, the halt on a journey,
waiting for someone or something, when time is suspended.
Silence.
We will close read two poems together – I’ll bring copies.
But I invite you also to bring along a short poem from the cannon
with that quality of stillness to share.
We’ll spend some writing too.
Please do come along!
Anne Boileau.
