Week 18 and 19

Image: https://frogblogmanchester.com/about/golden-mantella/

It's another two-week blog. I've been pre-occupied with family dramas and broken boilers. Turns out the prosaic isn't bad for poetry though. I've worked on four poems, even though I've been swearing at the builders next door who are building a loft extension next to the loft extension I have as my study.

I've finished the poem about Worsley Man and a rather whimsical poem about Dinosaur Eggs and I've drafted a poem about the Golden Mantella. I must remember to stop typing Mantilla, it's not like a Spanish shawl at all, it's a delightful, tiny and, sadly, critically endangered frog from Madagascar. I also have a frog joke, thanks to Jennie. If someone reads my frog poem they'll be able to say "reddit, reddit" (geddit?).

I've also been working on a poetry blog for the museum's website and a poem about trade. It was originally supposed to be in Hermes' voice. Not sure I've been able to manage that yet. In fact at the moment Hermes seems to be disappearing from the whole show. Not yet sure whether or not I can work him back in - but I'm just going to keep writing for now and deal with that later.

I've also come to a decision about the Benin poem. I'm not going to write about the Warri Kingdom - the more research I've done, the more complicated it gets, and it seems that the journey of the prince of Benin to 'found' the Warri kingdom might not be something all groups celebrate equally. Also, I've realised I want each poem to relate to a key object in the museum. So I'm going back to the Benin tusk and that story of exile and loss. So I've also got notes for a poem about that.

Now that I've switched from writing about the Strawberry Poison Dart from to the Golden Mantella, who is more endangered and possibly even cuter, I've identified another challenge. I can't find a Golden Mantella toy. Come to that a knitted Worsley Man is probably not an option. Neither am I going to carve a Benin tusk from polystyrene! I'm not going to be able to find 'things' for everything in the poems. I'm going to need images, and decent ones at that. But while I'm probably going to be able to put things on the laptop and have access to projectors in schools and other venues, what I really don't want is a powerpoint slide show. Or if I do, I'm going to have to up my powerpoint skills to produce something a bit more exciting.

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.