I've been lost in the motion. That sounds super gay but I have been. Workshopping with Grace Taylor has been fantastic, she's helped me open myself up to be more confident with the stage and the audience. We've done a few warm up exercises like saying our poems in varying tones/speeds etc, which helped us to get to know our poems. It also made me a bit less jittery, I think that's the main hinderance for me, trying to overcome the butterflies, I have a naturally loud voice, but I can get as quiet as a mouse if I'm not prepared enough. Grace also introduced us to a few performance poets like Sunni Patterson who I am completely in love with. Sunni is unbelievably amazing I am in complete awe of her, she's got the gift and she inspires. We haven't had much time to get together for group stuff, we did send our poems off to each other, so we could decide which ones we would include. We met up today before class to discuss this and we have brought it down to five poems each which will be a fantastic start for journal. We discussed the order of the poems, thought about any overarching themes. There were alot of hand images. It is an issue trying to figure exactly how we're going to produce the piece, most of us have zero pop up skills, but I think as long as we organise ourselves and do the research so we're on time with things it'll come along smoothly. We're kinda in the dark about the whole process but we're figuring it out enough to get us along. We also did a super practice with the mics which was fun. But I definately need a stand because I'm such a mover. I find it incredibly hard to keep still. I have been looking through my poems and have revised an old piece of work from last year I write titled: 13 ways of looking at brown skin. I can definately see the change in my style over the course of the year, the development of my writing, which I am very happy with. I'll post the revised copy up. The earlier draft was published in Ora Nui, but now I feel it definately could have been better. I am thinking about sending off one of my short stories, I've been looking around for any competitions ut I haven't found any that would be appropriate for this particular short story. I have started collating all of my best poems (in my opinion) to start the road to a first book of poetry. I would possibly like to edit my sudden fiction piece because I feel quite unhappy with it. Rereading it, it sounds a bit naff:

Bearings

     He watched three children    hoods up   lingering outside his Neighbours house    They each held their hands in front pockets and their voices silhouetted to silence    The lights went out in Mr Anderson’s house     and the children like little black elves went to work on his fence       
     Joseph watched    They guided their hands like curling waves across the surface    leaving a trail of sea foam    The stars were punched into the sky and one of the children looked up    Her face was sharp    nose wide and eyes like Tahitian pearls    Her brown skin rinsed in Moonlight    She glanced at Joseph’s window    he ducked down    but could taste her stare    When he got back up the children were gone    He ran into the hallway    tiptoed past his mum’s room    and went to the front door   
     He slowly clicked the lock out and wove into night    He scanned the street    but there were no children    He walked over to the Andersons’ house and on their fence was a large canoe    What did mums family call it? he thought    He turned back and one of the children had left a spray can    He picked it up and walked back home   
     Waka that’s what it was called Waka    He tucked himself into bed and thought about nannies stories of the tangata whenua    strong warriors nannie would say    and he slept    And slept    and wept    In his dreams they had been little drops of rain    splashing on his head   
                                                                                                            but not in his hands    or    open mouth.

 

Other than that the class seems to be going really well, I think our group will definately need to organise our time together effectively so that we can get our pop up book perfect. I need to think about the images and try and find templates for the pop ups. I'm unsure what kind of images we're going to go for because if we all choose really different things it might muck up the flow that we wanted for the journal. I'm glad we made time today to come together as it was the first proper time all three of us met as a group. We had skype called one time when I was away which was not as effective as I thought it would be, I don't think we got much done with what we had discussed at that time. For me it feels like today is our proper start for our group work. But I don't mind, we're definately making it so that everyone in the project has a say. We want it to be completely unified so that everyone is satisfied with the final product. It's looking really positive though :D