Week 12 and 13

It's not that not much has been happening, it's that most of the stuff that's been happening has been somewhere in the recesses of my mind - and it's not pretty in there.

Dominic and I trialled the first section of the Hermes show at Stanley Grove Junior school. It was great fun - and I remembered all the words. The children had lots of interesting questions which was great - one of the things poetry should do is make people think. 

One of the things I did many years ago when I had a role as science co-ordinator for Creative Partnerships is take a load of scientist, artist and educators out to dinner to talk (at the Wapping Project, now I think closed - which housed the hydraulics lift the curtains of London's theatreland) I seem to remember we argued a lot about metaphor but one of the things we agreed on was the importance of questions. We came up with a little aphorism - the reward for asking questions, is not answers, it is more questions. Or something like that. As a science educator I believe that if you can keep children's ability to ask questions alive, they will learn beyond your expectations. #

The questions also gave me a direction to go with the writing. It's also given me a lot to think about around the Hermes character and the theatrics of the piece - which is a completely new area for me. 

So I've been doing some writing around the history of the solar system (the problem with these things is as you keep answering questions arising from questions, you find yourself going further and further back. I don't want to start at the Big Bang - I'll leave that to Stephen Hawking!) and today I've been to the museum for a tete a tete with my favourite meteorite, a big shiny, angular piece of iron that fell on Campo de Ciel in Argentina about 5000 years ago. I've developed a bit of an obsession with this meteorite, mostly because it's one of the things you can touch. It's older and from further away than anything I will ever touch and that fills me with wonder. All I have to do now is catch some of that wonder in a poem.....

Week 10

Image Paul Cliff for Manchester Museum (flickr)

It's been a very exciting week. Dominic and I had a session on Monday working on my drafts (and eating vegan food). It was a very productive afternoon and we've got a draft ready to be unveiled at Stanley Grove school in a couple of weeks. Dominic's in for the day and I'm going along to perform at the assembly. Time to start to learn my script!

In the meantime the snakes have arrived. So I've a weekend spraying their tummies gold and attaching them to the staff. The belts have also arrived so I'll be fully costumed at Stanley Grove - obviously more important than knowing my words.... 

Today at the museum I've made notes for the poem about the meteorites and I've been gnawing away at the problem of what to make the final poem - the one about the future. I did wonder about a cockroach, but I don't want a post-apocalyptic future. I want these children to believe they can make a better future. 

As I've been wandering the museum thinking about the future I keep being drawn up to the top floor - which sort of makes sense - you'll remember last week I was looking at the sky through the windows. 

On that top floor is the aquaponics system - a closed, balanced aquatic system which uses fish poo to feed mint. Then there's a floor dedicated to the ideas of Wonder, Discover, Make and Share. I'm always drawn to the made things. I think our future is a made future. The living world is a triumph of organising forces over the forces of chaos. I think we have to be part of those organising forces. I think the time for just letting things happen will be after the earth has been cured of humans. In the meantime whether we see ourselves as part of nature or as the custodians of nature we have to work in harmony with it. 

So I wrote down 'harmony' and 'creation' and headed down the stairs through the Living Worlds gallery, asking myself again and again what's the symbol of the future. I passed the case labelled 'Peace' - the one full of origami birds, made I think by school children but I'll have to check that. It was one of the stops Dmitri and I made when we created a poetry film about migration. And there it was. Almost a full circle. An image of migration. The act of making, of co-operating, of imagining. Was the image of the future a paper bird? No, of course not. The future is a flock of paper birds. 

As I sat at the bus stop a while later I drafted the core of that final poem: 

The future's a blank piece of paper, 

the future is a word, 

the future's each fold,

each thought, each hand we hold, 

each plan we make, each prayer. 

The future's every dream we share, 

it's a flock of paper birds.

I think there's also a possibility of creating an activity round this where children write their dreams on paper and fold it into birds. I just have to learn how to fold a bird!

Week 8

This has been a busy week, picking my way through the turmoil that's been created as the project starts to branch in different directions.

The answers to last weeks questions.

1. Hermes tells riddles. He also tells lies and plays with words. He's like a cross between the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland and Jack Nicholson's Joker. In my head he is anyway - making him appear in person might be slightly trickier!

2. I met with Debbie and Cat to discuss using the money gallery in the card game. When will I learn - those problems which bug you for hours can usually be solved in a few minutes of lively discussion. Or maybe that's only after they've bugged you for hours, I'm not sure. Anyway, the solution to how to bring the money into the game, might be to bring money into the game. Looks like we're going to buy lots of lovely gold and silver coins and allow children to buy words from each other as part of the game. (Political aside - is this what I want to teach them about capitalism? Actually yes, it's not money that's the problem it's neo-liberalism and this game has rules!).

3. I'm not thinking about Frogs yet, or the Benin empire. One thing at a time. I might still buy a toy one though, once I've finished this costume.

Ah, yes, the costume. I've been working on Hermes' costume. Here's his hat, sandals and staff.

There are a couple of yellow rubber snakes on their way from Hong Kong to add to the staff, along with 3 narrow belts, which seems to approximate how Ancient Greek women wore their toga's (he's a very gender-flexible god). I just need to get a white bed sheet for said toga and I already have a nice gold brooch in the shape of a snake.

Oh, and today, this from a charity shop. It's not very Greek but it's gold and it'll probably hold most of the props I need for the show. Hurray!

Week 7

Today I'm writing from home - they're having the windows done in the museum and Debbie and Cat have decided to keep a wide berth and I decided that I needed to catch up on thinking and writing.

Three things are taxing my brain.

1. Riddles. I think Hermes might be a riddler. I think it could work as a way of involving the children and as a basis for follow on workshops. I've been re-reading the Exeter Riddles to see if I can incorporate them. But there's not much overlap between their Anglo Saxon working world and the world of a Greek God. And they're really rude!!

But they've given me some food for thought. Double meanings, puns, visual clues, anagrams.


2. How to use the Money gallery in the card game I've created which uses objects from the Living Cultures and Manchester galleries. I've got a list of words like "reward" "contract" "exchange" "value". They're all quite abstract though. Maybe there's a way that this gallery provides Chance or Community Chest cards like monopoly. Or do we somehow work with a list of concrete nouns and a list of abstract nouns.

3. Frogs. Specifically Strawberry poison dart frogs. He's my next candidate for a poem and a riddle from Hermes.

Look at him here, He's delightful. I can also buy a toy of him on Amazon. Oh dear.

Consquently I've eaten a lot and written very little. Never mind. Thinking is still work.

Week 5

It's been quite a week. Dominic Berry came to see me at the museum on Friday. Dominic's a talented and experienced writer of poetry for children and I've asked him to mentor me on this project. You should check out his webpage. Earlier in the week we'd both been to see http://louisethepoet.co.uk/'s show The Sleepover at Z Arts. It was great. Lots of chewy rhymes, physical theatre and humour. It really got me thinking.

Especially I started to think about making Hermes the star of the show. I started off thinking of making a big Hermes doll complete with gold sandals, winged helmet, staff and before I knew what was happening I was online shopping for gold sandals for me. I think I'm going to be Hermes. (Dominic's quite excited by the whole gender switching thing as well as the vegan carrot cake in the cafe!). 

Dominic's encouraged me to stick to four key poems within the Hermes narrative. I was all set to write twelve, and I still might, but only 4 will be central to the show. The others can be imported if required. We thought they should represent a journey in time. I was already keen on writing about the meteoroite (Oooh, yes, I bought a meteorite from ebay. It's only as large as my thumb nail but I keep touching it and thinking "That's come from outer space!" and "That might be older than the earth!") and the tree frog. The tree frog's interesting because not only is it that strange transition between land and see (and Hermes loves those boundaries) but because there's another story, about how we've impacted the world around us without even thinking about it (Palm oil, folks!). 

We talked about also having a human story - just yet I'm not sure what that is, and also a story of a future. I checked in my notebook and noticed that according to Aesop (who argues with Aesop!) Hermes was the ruler of the gate of prophetic dreams which fits beautifully.

We also went down to the dinosaurs to have a look round. Dominic's working on a work for children around Dinosaurs. I thought he should have a land, air and water dinosaur, but it turns out the air and water reptiles aren't actually dinosaurs. Which is a shame because they're cool. Actually it was mostly nautilus that charmed me. Guess I'm going to have to write about nautilus myself!

So we started to think about my poems in terms of the air (meteorite), water (frog) and land (human migration). I think the fourth might be fire. Have we a fiery future. I was talking to one of my pupils about the sun cooling into a red giant and the probability that the earth would get swallowed up. He told me that when his primary school teacher told his class about it, one little girl cried inconsolably. I don't want to have that effect on children. Personally I'm not all that bothered about what happens in 7 or 8 billion years. I guess Hermes might be though....

Week 4

So, today was the day an ipad nearly went through a glass case.... I've been experimenting with Frame Artist with a view to using it for workshops. I've spent a morning chasing text boxes that disappeared and saved templates that were never to be found. I almost never lose patience with people but sometimes I wish apps were sentient so I could hurt them!

But I've also been drafting a couple of poems - one about the parade of souls at the breakfast table and another about Hermes. He's the god of travellers and traders, the god who crosses borders and boundaries. In my mind's eye I imagine him hanging out at Calais and among the refugees of Iraq and Syria. I don't know how much help he'll be - he's not a straightforward god. He's inventive but he's also a trickster. He's mercurial - literally, he later became the Roman god Pan. Perhaps he's Loki too. I've even come across a suggestion in my research that his modern incarnation is Wily Coyote.

I like him. He makes more sense to me than most of the gods I come across. I guess I'm ok with a god that plays dice!

While researching I also discovered a poem written about him by H.D., and it's wonderful (damn!).

Hermes of the Ways

By H. D.

I THE HARD sand breaks, And the grains of it Are clear as wine. Far off over the leagues of it, The wind, Playing on the wide shore, Piles little ridges, And the great waves Break over it. But more than the many-foamed ways Of the sea, I know him Of the triple path-ways, Hermes, Who awaiteth. Dubious, Facing three ways, Welcoming wayfarers, He whom the sea-orchard Shelters from the west, From the east Weathers sea-wind; Fronts the great dunes. Wind rushes Over the dunes, And the coarse, salt-crusted grass Answers. Heu, It whips round my ankles! II Small is This white stream, Flowing below ground From the poplar-shaded hill, But the water is sweet. Apples on the small trees Are hard, Too small, Too late ripened By a desperate sun That struggles through sea-mist. The boughs of the trees Are twisted By many bafflings; Twisted are The small-leafed boughs. But the shadow of them Is not the shadow of the mast head Nor of the torn sails. Hermes, Hermes, The great sea foamed, Gnashed its teeth about me; But you have waited, Where sea-grass tangles with Shore-grass.

Week 3

First things first. Cardamom buns! The museum cafe is back open and serving cardamom buns. These are new to me - they're made of a bread dough, the colour of brown sugar, flavoured with cardomom and I suspect cinnamon and served warm and they're absolutely delicious.

While I ate my bun and waited for Debbie and Cat I sketched this out. My drawing skills aren't all that great - but I wanted a visual way of expressing something I'd been sensing more and more - that our feelings about migration and about the interaction within the human world and between the human and natural world are strongly linked to how we view the connectedness of the world. 

While we were discussing this and the idea that in early human societies the need to trade and exchange must have formed much of the basis for migration - and also that none of us have what we need. Solely we can achieve very little - the greater our ambition, the greater our need to co-operate. Cat wondered if we could mimic that in a word game where children had to trade cards to get the words they would need to create sentences. It reminded me a bit of 'Fish', a game we used to play as children, or 'Old Maid' without the maid (and obviously I like positive messages about single middle-aged women these days!). 

Sitting there eating my bun (I told you the bun was important) and drinking coffee I thought about how even our breakfast involves the contribution of a whole parade of souls - including the cow. There's a poem there!

Debbie also handed over a special camera for me to try. It's a Polaroid camera except it prints out stickers. We talked about how we might use this in a workshop based around the questions I used last week to write the poemlets. We also talked about using the ipods for the same job - so I get to test out an ipod (I'm an android user) and practice using Frame Artist. 

Then I went back up to the money gallery - a gallery I hadn't previously realised existed. I came to it through the live reptiles and frogs, which has always been the end point of my visits. I went back to have another look at this. 

This is a contract on papyrus from Egypt in the 1st century BC. It's an artist's contract committing to perform at a number of festivals in return for a set fee. I've got a drawer full of these - though none of them on papyrus. 

I also spotted him. He's Hermes, the God of traders and travellers. I thought I might write a poem about him too. 

When I started this project faced with the two themes of Water and Migration I was tempted to spend most time on water because the subject of Migration is so fraught. But it occurs to me that if it's place in it's historical, global and natural context it becomes less so. I spoke to Tania from Sustain Education about this and she agrees that maybe school's would be helped by having a way into those discussions. It's very topical. And there is, I think, a moral imperative. They're tricky things, both in poetry and in education, so it needs to be handled carefully. 

I went back through to see the tree frogs. I thought about the evolution of fish, amphibia and reptiles and about how that movement from sea to land is a kind of migration. Nearly every textbook talks about 'conquering' the land. That's weird when you think of it. I started to think about the language that was used - invasion, colonisation, exploration - for more or less the same thing. Could I use these in the card game. Dare I give these words scores - using the highest for the most or the least manipulative? 

Back through Nature's Library, I started to notice things (particularly plants and invertebrates) named after other things. This is a kind of migration of ideas, which I suppose is what a metaphor is. Could a writing exercise be based on naming? Here are some of them - I love that there's a chocolate chip starfish!