As some of you may know, as well as holding private creative writing workshops, I also tutor creative writing for Pembrokeshire County Council. Tutoring adults can be  rewarding (discovering wonderful writers), chaotic (my lesson plans are rarely followed – someone will inevitably take things off at a tangent) hilarious (the undiscovered comedian/ the completely unaware comedian) and thought-provoking (especially with memoir writing) Every now and then I like to share some of their work.

Below are Alex  Abercrombie’s versions. 

However, this first poem, written by him, was taken tongue in cheek by me… yet, I suppose, is one I could even blatantly use as promotion for Pattern of Shadows

REPEATING PATTERNS

for Judith Barrow

Poor Nelly:

She tried so hard,

But both her sons

Turned out feral.

 

One of them

Raped a woman.

Someone drowned him,

Then worse followed –

 

His brother

Randy for revenge

Traced and murdered

The wrong man.

 

Hang on, though –

Haven’t we heard

This tale told far

Better before?

Same story,

Same characters,

Same web of dark

Motivations?

 

Writer’s cramp’s

A piffling excuse

For pilfering

Judith’s plot!

 

Oh, Judith –

You try so hard

To make even

Scum seem human,

 

But (unless

I’ve totally

Misread you) your

Refined fury

 

At things folk

Do to each other

Is what really

Drives your pen.

 

HACKNEYED

This are Alex’s. In the following first stanza these are his words not mine!!

So-called

Shadormas. 

Most of them

Following

A well-worn rut (the last one’s

Not quite so hackneyed.)

*

I wonder:

Why is it so hard

To extract

Poetry

From social tittle-tattle

And the day’s routine?

*

Why is it

That washing dishes

And weeding

And putting

The bins out never kindles

The Muse’s candle?

*

Why doesn’t

Saying Bore da

To neighbours,

Or strangers,

Or builders, ever evoke

Interesting rhymes?

*

If Larkin,

Patiently rubbing

His boredoms

Together,

Could burn holes in people’s hearts,

Why can’t I do it?