Everyone will get something different out of Arvon, and I can’t speak for other people. But I have recorded my Arvon experience, which hopefully will give you at least an idea of the sort of stimulus an Arvon provides, the day to day running of the course, and maybe give you some writing exercises you’d like to try.

Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday

Lumb Bank

Monday

4-6pm Arrival at Arvon (if you go in the summer this will take a lot less time if you are travelling by car than it took me, in the car from Newcastle if should take 2 and a half hours) but unfortunately the map I downloaded was not a quick one, but went down a lot of villages and roundabouts- so it took 5 hours! Your best bet is to go down the motorway to Halifax/ Leeds and figure it from there.) Aim to arrive there when it is still daylight, as the turn off is very easy to miss, particularly in the dark.

6pm - Meeting in front of the open fire in the lounge, to discuss rules of the house and cooking rota.

7pm - Evening meal, on the first night the meal is already prepared and ready- baked potatoes, salad, bread and meats and cheese etc, followed by desert of meringue pie.

8pm - Dishes, I opted to do the dishes on the first night and put myself on the rota to cook the following day to get it out the way.

9pm - John Hegley handed out poems by other people we had to read to ourselves and then pick one poem we wanted to read, and also say which of the poems was our favourite. Go in groups with others if someone has the same poem they wanted to read as you, and figure out between yourselves how you are going to read it together. Followed by just sort of chilling, there was a musician there who did some songs, and some people read some of their poems.

Homework Exercise: Write down the dream you will dream tonight before you go to sleep.

Bed - the silence kept me awake, couldn’t get to sleep in a strange bed, and the new alarm clock I’d bought had an unbearably loud tick which had to be covered with a pile of clothes! (Turns out even if you are bad at mornings like me, you won’t really need an alarm clock, as sounds of other people getting up will wake you up on time for workshop.)

Tuesday

Breakfast you help yourself, toast, cheeses, bread, or porridge or cereal, fruit on the table at all times.

10am - 1pm Warm up’s, voice and movement. Writing workshop ran by John Hegley and Francesca beard. Exercise: Draw around your foot and write a poem in it that documents a step you have taken in your life next do the same with your hand.

1 - 2pm Lunch is put out by the centre staff. It tends to be fresh bread, cheeses, green salad, and things like pasta salad, potato salad, falafel, and veggie pasties and rolls, which you can help yourself to.

2 - 4pm Workshop. In this exercise we were given a list of words and a very small amount of time to write in response to them. Next we were put into groups and all read out our lines, a member of the group would act as editor and listen to all lines read out, and rearrange the order of the lines of writing about a certain topic to create a poem (for example, if the word from the exercise was vegetables everyone would read out their line about this and a poem would be created.) We then followed direction from the editor and worked out how we would perform the poems as a group, each reading our own line and accompanying it with movement/actions. Groups then performed this to the other group. This was a lot of fun, even though I did feel a bit stupid having to do the actions- I definitely need to loosen up!

4 - 7pm Cooking duty, on the menu – Jamie Oliver chicken with Mediterranean veg and basil, served with boiled potatoes and cabbage, for vegi’s chickpea dish with falafel and roast veg. Dessert- raspberry and oat coolie

8 -10pm Performance of work by the course tutors – Francesca Beard and John Hegley perform a poetry set in the candlelit lounge.

Homework: Snapshot poem, write a poem that is a snapshot from your life.

Bed - My alarm clock is still unbearably loud, and I still can’t get to sleep!

Tomorrow, we have been warned, we have to perform one of the poems we have written since we arrived (this is rather a worry, since I usually would work on a poem for months before I would attempt to read it.)

Wednesday

10am - 1pm Workshop by John and Francesca. Everyone performs their new poem, and feedback is given by the group. I am extremely nervous, not only because the poem is new but because reading before 7pm seems a bit weird for me, where is the dark to hide me, and the comfort that people are drinking beer? Anyway, everyone in the group seems to be a very good poet, and they are all extremely confident performers. Feel like my Boro accent sticks out like a sore thumb, and receive feedback that I sounded whimsical and sad when I read the poem- and am not that sure really what to do with the information I am given (i.e.: not sure how to sound less sad, when the subject matter of the poem is sort of bleak- and would sounding not sad be appropriate or add something? Suggestions not forthcoming on how else it could be done, and I am aware that there are still members of the group to read and don’t want to take time from them, so we move on.) But leave this one feeling a little lost, disappointed and wishing I could ask for feedback on how to do it better.

1 - 2pm lunch

2 - 4pm Workshop by John and Francesca. Warm up, write a personal ad. Exercise is we had to draw a picture of a person with an object, and then swap it with a partner. We have to write a letter to the character we have in front of us from the viewpoint of the character we drew, then put up the pictures and read out the poem.

7pm Evening meal is goulash with salad and pasta. Dessert is fruit crumble-, pumpkin seeds on the top, and definitely rhubarb and blackberries in there (yum, really wish I’d wrote down the recipe!)

9pm Performance by poetry boy band performance group aisle 16- they are so young, energetic and skilled it reminds us I think how far we have to go.
The tips the boys give on performance poetry is that the tricks are…

1. To include cultural references in your poems
2. Internal rhyme.
3. Rhythm and repetition
4. Word play
5. Punch lines
6. Jokes
7. Include a twist
8. Return to a concept in the end you have used earlier on

10.30pm People asking questions and socialising with the guests. I’m really bad at this, just sort of watch people who seem to be having interesting conversations!

Homework: Write a paradox poem or write a poem with a strong metre and rhyme, stick to a particular one.

This poetry is obviously getting to me, I dream that I am cleaning John Hegley’s shoes, and that he walks past and says “have you got anything yet?” I say no, he says “You’d better keep cleaning them then.” In the dream the rest of the group are playing a board game, and Francesca is smiling like an angel. I’m not sure if anyone knows I have to clean shoes or not! How weird- I try to analyse this, and sort of think it is about my insecurities at performance abilities, or a reaction to noticing how muddy my boots were earlier and not having any polish to clean them!

Thursday

10am -1pm Workshop

1 - 2pm Lunch

We were also asked to make up one lie about ourselves, and say one true interesting thing about ourselves. This is an exercise I have done myself as an icebreaker with students, yet I found this impossible to do. I was the only group member who experienced this, and I had to go away and think about why this may be. I think my difficulty with this goes hand in hand with my inability to talk to an audience and be myself in front of people ( seem able to say a lot more in poems than in real life.) Definitely something for me to think about, how I can try to open up a little more in a set.

Next pick a number from 1-10, now we are to say something using the number we have picked as our self esteem in the way we say it (I picked 7, had I knew what the exercise would be I would have picked 1, and found it easier!)

7pm Evening meal is cous cous and salmon or veg kebabs, followed by ice-cream and fruit salad.

9pm Outing to the local pub, whilst there people read out one poem they like by a published poet, a strange dog is in the country pub with its little teddy bear, and I am at the quiet end of the table sort of watching.

Friday

10am - 1pm Workshop. The group each read out a poem, which could either be our snapshot or letter poem. I wrote a poem which is a letter to an audience. This time we plough through with no time for feedback, which is essential but a shame for me, since this is the first performancey poem I’ve wrote all week (and very different to the poem I read on Wednesday), and I would have been interested to see if feedback on how I read the poem was any better. (If I was socially more skilled, I would have asked people for feedback at lunchtime to help me out.)

John takes a workshop to show us how to do a workshop in schools, in this we are asked to drawer a leaf, and write an acrostic poem on it, and to tear the leaf out. Next we are to drawer a dog, give it a name on it somewhere and write a lot of words that rhyme with dog on it (again tear this out), and hand it in. People then pick up a dog at random and describe the dog, and we must listen and say if we think it is our dog. The object is to get children describing things, really using words and thinking about them, at the end of the session the dogs and leaves are arranged into a poetree, using the dogs as the bark. This was a lot of fun.

Next we have 15 mins to write a poem about the pub the previous evening. I am unable to write anything good in the time, and read out a crap little poem from the dog’s viewpoint (two other dog poems all better than mine, so I scrap it.)

1.30 - 3pm Lunch. In the lunch break I go on the PC and write something quickly, as at 3 we have to hand in what poem we want in the anthology. It is decided that the anthology will be each of our pub poems, since mine is crap I have to quickly write another one. The poem I produced is a lot better than I expected, and I am left sort of wondering where it came from since my earlier attempt was so bad.

3pm - Group meet up briefly, and then separate. We all hand in our poems for anthology, and have free time to work on our poems for tonight when we have to perform a poem we have written this week for the group. Since I don’t want to read the feet poem I did earlier in the week again, I have to write something new in this time. I have some other poems I have started, but all of them need typing up and work anyway. Earlier in the week John showed us a poem called Letter to Superman, and I look at the notes I wrote earlier. I think I have written better poems than this in the week, but they all need work and typing, and don’t seem that performance friendly. I write a poem that is a letter to Catwoman, and spend the rest of the time getting tarted up for the performance and practising reading it. The new poem isn’t exactly a barrel of laughs either, but I reckon since the other poem I read was sad and whimsical, if I can’t be jovial I will be a little sinister instead. I am nervous about it all, but also pleased because I feel that this event will be more representative of the way I actually usually do poetry in public, because it is at night time, and the last night of the week I can put on my poetry boots, get a tie on and a jacket and make-up, and feel more committed to it because of this

7pm - Evening meal

9pm . We all meet in the barn for performing. Performances are wonderful, though the order is pot luck- with names being drawn from a hat. Since I couldn’t think of the introduction for myself my name isn’t in the basket till I slip it in during the break for the first half, end up reading second to last. Was hoping to read early and get it out the way. The performers all seem very confident, and the styles range from a man with a guitar lamenting a lost kagool, Danny rapping about Tony Blair with a guitar back-up, a lady with real flair and rootedness really using her body to relate her tale about being an artists model, to a lady who actually does a sort of strip tease on stage! (In a way though it is a reverse strip tease, she puts on her lipstick, takes off her jacket to reveal a red satin dress, then slips off her jeans to slip into red shoes- so creative, and definitely something you wouldn’t forget.)
Unfortunately, no one seems to be giving me any feedback on my performance, which leaves me a bit paranoid that it is so bad no one wants to seem nasty on the last night. I really could use some feedback, and again it is my own fault for being too shy to ask someone what they think, and to offer any suggestions!

I’m still not sure about how to perform poetry and still be myself, but I’m thinking about it, and I hope this is a pretty good start.

Saturday

A nice lady gives me a lift to Leeds, and I realise that this is the first time I have really spoken to her all week (and wish I’d done it sooner.) Shopping in Leeds I buy a Mexican wrestling mask for someone for Christmas, and a frosted recycled glass Star of David for the tree I have to put up tomorrow. Everyone is on trains heading towards their other selves. The X-factor is on, and I suddenly don’t seem to care. I am missing poems already, that world were people talk about them (that will be replaced with people telling me about their jobs and people they work with, and discussions about mitre saws and DIY). I flick through the anthology, tell about the week, and over the Christmas holidays resolve to read a new poem every day.

Arvon photo’s include the view from the house, the house, my bedroom, dining room, lounge and music room.

Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday

Top