Weeks 31-33

The posts are getting fewer and farther between and soon this page will be archived and replaced with this one: http://juicefromspace.blogspot.co.uk That's mostly because the main thing happening at the moment is me hammering away on the keyboard and learning my lines.

In the meantime, there are a few things you should know: there's a preview of the show at the museum on Wednesday 26th October, the teacher's pack has been drafted and is ready to be reviewed by Tania, my colleague at Sustain Education, and we've a filming day with Jason booked next month to create films of two of the poems to be featured on youtube.

So here are the details of that preview - also featured on the Juice from Oranges, Rocks from Space page. Please do book as numbers are limited.

Juice from Oranges, Rocks from Space

Wed 26 Oct

11.30am - 12.15pm & 1.30-2.15pm

A new poetry performance from Helen Clare, about exhibits from around the museum; where they came from and the journey they’ve made. There will be happy poems, sad poems, gory poems and fun poems – and opportunities for children to join in and create too.

Find out about the giant carved tusk, a moth, bloodworms, a man who was murdered and left to rot in a bog, a Greek God, Stan the T. Rex, and an ancient rock from outer space. 

For children aged 8-12 and their parents/carers

Free, book on mcrmuseum.eventbrite.com or 0161 275 2648

Week 22 and 23

Photo: Manchester Evening News.

I'd like to stop now please. I've had a great time and I've written lots of poems I'm pleased with. I've done the stuff that's for me, and I've now got the difficult job of forming that into something for other people. To be honest, I'm feeling slightly clueless!

The next job is to somehow make the poems into a narrative. I'm thinking it ought to be a series of conversations with the objects, but beyond that it's hard to see. Then I'm going to be working on performance skills with Dominic - which will be pushing at the edges of my comfort zone.

I also need to create a teachers' pack around the show. I've already got a few ideas for activities but I need to work out how to write them - and then they've all got to be cross-referenced against the national curriculum. Oh Joy!

In the meantime I've been catching up on admin - making sure the midpoint evaluations are written up and seeing what photographs we already have and fighting with Powerpoint to make a visual representation of the Nonsense Verse activity.

So I've gone from feeling quite smug to feeling as if I've hit a brick wall. The real work starts here! So I'm sorry I've no exciting news for you this week. But here's a pretty picture of the museum.