jill teague - out of the blue writing
writing, poetry therapy
Thursday, 28 January 2021
Missing Pieces
Monday, 26 October 2020
WINTERING - How we survive and thrive in challenging times
A four-week online writing course
with Jill Teague
outofthebluewriting
November 09 - December 06, 2020
Cost: £125
Using Katherine May’s latest book “Wintering” as inspiration, and Winter as a metaphor, we will use poetry and visual images to explore ways and means of supporting our mind, body and spirit, through “wintering” - those challenging times that are a natural and inevitable part of being human.
(NB the book is not required reading for the course)
- Weekly resources and writing prompts via email with the opportunity to share your written responses with the group
- Weekly 90-minute group sessions via Zoom, where we will come together to write, discuss and share
- PDF Workbook at the end of the course
Work at your own pace, in a supportive and creative forum.
Previous experience is not necessary, just an open heart and mind.
For further information and to book a place, please contact me at jillteague@yahoo.co.uk
Sunday, 15 December 2019
The Family of Things
Friday, 22 November 2019
Grey Areas
Some time ago a friend gave me a copy of Han Kang’s “The White Book”, described as “a lyrical and disquieting exploration of personal grief through the prism of the colour white”. I had enjoyed reading the book and engaging with Kang's unique explorations of the colour white and so I suggested to my writing group that as our next project, we could each choose a colour and, over the course of six weeks, make our own explorations of our chosen colour.
The colour I chose was grey - a favourite colour of mine. I began by mapping the associations that came to mind from thinking about the colour. I then turned these ideas into a list poem which in turn became the focus of further exploration.
Grey
Rhondda Grey
River grey
Rain
Rain
Rain
Clouds
Mist
Shadows
Webs
Eyes
Hair
Jets
Warships
Doves
Bedroom Paint
School Uniform
Slate
Squirrels
Scans
Grey Areas
Grey Matter
Grey Mare
Moth
Mouse
Moon Rocks
Grey Sidewalk
Grey Glove
Grey feather
Sloughed Snakeskin
Vacuum Cleaner Hose
Tuesday, 25 June 2019
"Across the Evening Sky..."
Dusk fell as the swifts swooped and rose again and again above us. Their lively energy felt like a thread that was weaving us together as friends - right there, right then.
We walked through the lanes to the highest point on the hill and watched darkness fall across the last pink of the setting sun. The sea was still and the harbour lights lit up one by one, like tiny beacons of hope. I thought of the song "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?"
Ah, but then you know it's time for them to go
But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving
I do not count the time
Who knows where the time goes?
I know it will be so until it's time to go
So come the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again
I have no fear of time
And who knows where the time goes?"
Wednesday, 19 September 2018
Pascal's Coat
The image above is a painting by Rene Magritte called "Pascal's Coat". At the age of 31, the famous mathematician and scientist, Blaise Pascal is reputed to have experienced an intense spiritual vision. He recorded this vision on parchment which he then sewed into the lining of his coat. He secreted this note in each of his subsequent coats until the parchment was found after his death by a servant who, noticing the unexplained bulk in the final coat, undid the lining. Pascal's "Night of Fire" was a time of personal transformation, and he obviously went to great effort to keep the memory of it in close proximity for the remainder of his life.
The poet Jorie Graham has written a long poem called "Le Manteau De Pascal". Both the poem and the image appeal to my love of poetry and art, and the genre of Ekphrastic writing. This line resonates in relation to that genre - "You do understanding, don't you, by looking?"
Over the next few weeks, I will be exploring the image and the poem in my own writing.
Here are some extracts from her poem:
The woman who threw the threads in the two directions
has made, skillfully, something dark-true,
as the evening calls the bird up into
the branches of the shaven hedgerows,
to twitter bodily
a makeshift coat - the box elder cut back stringently by the owner
that more might grow next year, and thicker, you know - "
"You do understanding, don't you, by looking?
The coat, which is itself a ramification, a city
floats vulnerably above another city, ours,
the city on the hill (only with hill gone),
floats in illustration
of what once was believed, and thus was visible -
(all things believed are visible)
floats a Jacob's ladder with hovering empty arms, an open throat,
a place where a heart might beat if it wishes,
pockets that hang awaiting the sandy whirr of a small secret,
folds where the legs could be, with their kneeling mechanism,
the floating fatigue of an after-dinner herald,
not guilty of any treason towards life except fatigue,
a skillfully cut coat, without chronology,
filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed —
as then it is, abruptly, the last stitch laid in, the knot bit off —
hung there in Gravity, as if its innermost desire,
numberless the awaitings flickering around it,
the other created things also floating but not of the same order, no,
not like this form, built so perfectly to mantle the body,
the neck like a vase awaiting its cut flower,
a skirting barely visible where the tucks indicate
the mild loss of bearing in the small of the back,
the grammar, so strict, of the two exact shoulders —
and the law of the shouldering —
and the chill allowed to skitter up through,
and those crucial spots where the fit cannot be perfect —
oh skirted loosening aswarm with lessenings,
with the mild pallors of unaccomplishment,
flaps night-air collects in,
folds... But the night does not annul its belief in,
the night preserves its love for, this one narrowing of infinity,
that floats up into the royal starpocked blue its ripped, distracted supervisor —
this coat awaiting recollection,
this coat awaiting the fleeting moment, the true moment, the hill,the vision of the hill,
and then the moment when the prize is lost, and the erotic tinglings of the dream of reason
are left to linger mildly in the weave of the fabric according to the rules,
the wool gabardine mix, with its grammatical weave,
never never destined to lose its elasticity,
its openness to abandonment,
its willingness to be disturbed."
"How many coats do you think it will take?
The coat was a great-coat.
The Emperor's coat was.
How many coats do you think it will take?
The undercoat is dry. What we now want is?
The sky can analyse the coat because of the rips in it.
The sky shivers through the coat because of the rips in it.
The rips in the sky ripen through the rips in the coat.
There is no quarrel.
I have put on my doubting, my wager, it is cold.
It is an outer garment, or, conversely a natural covering,
so coarse and woolen, also of unknown origin,
a barely apprehensible dilution of evening into
an outer garment, or, conversely a natural covering,
to twitter bodily a makeshift coat,
that more might grow next year, and thicker, you know,
not shade-giving, not chronological,
my name being called out now but from out back, behind,
an outer garment, so coarse and woolen,
also of unknown origin, not shade-giving, not chronological,
each harm with its planeloads folded up in the sleeves,
you do understand, don't you, by looking?
the jacob's ladder with its floating arms its open throat,
that more might grow next year, and thicker, you know,
filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed,
the other created things also floating but not of the same order,
not shade-giving, not chronological,
you do understand, don't you, by looking?
a neck like a vase awaiting its cut flower,
filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed,
the moment the prize is lost, the erotic tingling,
the wool-gabardine mix, its grammatical weave
— you do understand, don't you, by looking? —
never never destined to lose its elasticity,
it was this night I believe but possibly the next
I saw clearly the impossibility of staying
filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed,
also of unknown origin, not shade-giving, not chronological
since the normal growth of boughs is radiating
a system of spoke-wise clubs of green — sleeve pieces —
never never destined to lose its elasticity
my name being called out now but back, behind,
hissing how many coats do you think it will take
"or try with eyesight to divide" (there is no quarrel)
behind everything the sound of something dripping
a system of spoke-wise clubs of green — sleeve pieces
filled with the sensation of suddenly being completed
the wool gabardine mix, the grammatical weave,
the never-never-to-lose-its-elasticity: my name
flapping in the wind like the first note of my absence
hissing how many coats do you think it will take
are you a test case is it an emergency
flapping in the wind the first note of something
overheard nearby an impermanence of structure
watching the lip-reading, there is no quarrel,
I will vanish, others will come here, what is that,
never never to lose the sensation of suddenly being
completed in the wind — the first note of our quarrel —
it was this night I believe or possibly the next
filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed,
I will vanish, others will come here, what is that now
floating in the air before us with stars a test case
that I saw clearly the impossibility of staying."