Last month, John Simmons published a new volume of poetry inspired by the Spanish city of Seville. Discussing the collection, John wrote:
Writing gains a lot of power and attraction from close association with a place. It’s hard to imagine what William Faulkner would have written if he hadn’t placed so much of his writing in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. Or Elena Ferrante without Naples, William Wordsworth without the Lake District, Katherine Mansfield without her exiled memories of New Zealand. With these writers, place is so much embedded in the writing that it almost becomes a character – more than just a scenic backdrop.
For this month’s Mini-Project, we invited 26ers to write a piece rooted deeply in a single place – real or imagined, grand or quaint. Where it was, the setting had to be the focus.
The aim? To explore how place shapes ourselves and our writing – and to discover how writing about somewhere can redefine our relationship with it:
Be a writer, not just a tourist. You’ll find the words you write make the places visited much more memorable.
The Challenge
Create a piece of writing (poem or prose, any length) focussed on “place” – perhaps as the centre of a short narrative, perhaps as a description in its own right. But the setting must feel centred, alive, and vivid. Wherever it is, let it breathe. Rather than writing about a place, try writing from inside it.
Foyles bookshop café
Far from the madding crowd, I thought
But it was far from that
A booming woman
At the next table silenced her friends
A laughoutloud couple
Stroked each other’s hands
And raised their eyebrows at the same time
There were of course writers who
Looked as if they might be famous
Just by being there
Pens poised, keyboards under attack
A polite notice suggested two hours
Was long enough for them to be creative
Not the sort of place
To sit for an hour and read
It seemed at first
But a good book
Was all it took
– Paul White
Southampton Road
I live on a street.
It’s a perfectly fine street.
It’s the street where I live, at least.
I tend to pass through it, pass by it,
On my way to somewhere else.
This evening was a cloudless night,
So, I took my time coming home.
To smell the roses (so to speak).
What a magnificent street it is.
It has everything a street wants.
Street glitter on the pavement made by jolly men in the early hours.
A civil exchange of differences in opinion the whole street can hear.
The police telling a pleasant gentleman he must leave the woman’s property, as he’s in violation of the terms of his bail.
Fitness conscious women in short skirts walking couch to 5k every night.
The exquisite sound of grinding metal and the electric waft of petrol from the garage down the road.
The grey and white and beige and brown paint cannot hide there are no unique buildings in the lot.
Under the shallow surface, they are all the same.
In each one it’s too hot in summer and too cold in winter.
There are no trees on this street. The last one was removed after it keeled over in a storm.
But there are metal mountains on the horizon- Pillions, scaffolding and stacked shipping containers.
Flaming jets from distant pillars. The symbol of progress.
“We’ve made it.”
Nature doesn’t reach this corner of the earth.
Pigeons never stay, even the rats are moving out.
The only other animals who can stomach here are cats, and only because we feed them.
What happened to the forests? I ask.
What sprig or tuft of grass once lived beneath these concrete slabs?
Is this worth it?
The street doesn’t answer.
I live on a street.
It’s a perfectly fine street.
It’s the street where I live, at least.
I try not to dwell on it for too long.
– Harry Ashton-Key (written in 26 minutes)
Latitude 360.85’ South, Longitude 1740.84’ East
at this low tide time of day
there are only shallow pools
of inspiration left behind
the deep and meaningful
ocean has dragged itself away
and out to sea once more
all the drama’s on the horizon now
and lapping waves make
weak polite applause
that can only just be heard
in this shell of a poem
– Paul White (written in 62 words)