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Viewing single post of blog Time Space Residency at METAL, Southend

(Written Saturday 17th March) The weather couldn’t have been more different from yesterday’s as I woke up to my final day’s residency at Metal Southend. I knew that there was an anticipated cold snap, but I hadn’t expected to see snow as looked out of the window. It looked bitter and cold and I was pleased to have completed my final long run yesterday, in beautiful, spring weather. Instead, I had taken the opportunity during the POP-UP Essex Writers House that METAL is hosting during March, to book myself a place on a one day creative writing workshop relating to situated practice and notions of place, led by author Lee Rourke.

I wasn’t sure what to expect as I don’t really see myself as a writer as such, but I was glad to be indoors and out of the cold for the day. Aside from that, the subject certainly interested me and I thought that it could be helpful, because I do write at times, but I was a little worried that I might be out of my depth or feel out of place. I needn’t have worried; the group was small and mix of writers of all kinds, with more or less experience and also a couple of people a bit like me,  who didn’t really consider themselves writers: another artist and a photographer.

The atmosphere was very open and relaxed and our host easy-going, knowledgeable and generous. Although the emphasis tended towards writing novels as a genre of writing, which was the author’s experience, the advice given , short writing exercises we were asked to do and information shared could easily be applied to other forms of writing.  It was interesting and useful to be predominantly with writers and to be placed slightly outside my comfort zone. It certainly made me think even in that short space of time, about how I approach my own writing.

The day was nicely punctuated by a lunchtime reading by Clare Currie – Poet Laureate for the city of Peterborough, who was also one of the participants in the workshop.

I’d like to end this post with one of the most evocative short pieces of writing about place, that I’ve come across over the last week, concerning this part of the world, the Thames Estuary, an extract from Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness, which I first came across when reading Rachel Litchtenstein’s Estuary and which was referred to again in today’s workshop. It seems a fitting end to this first part of the residency, but I’ll be back in April.

“The sea reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished spirits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness.”


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