What you’ve missed so far…#2
2.Writer’s Building Block Workshops
Writer’s Building Block was one of the first series of programmed events to have happened on Poet Built It. PBI to our friends ;)
Zena Edwards, Francesca Beard and Sam Berkson brought a fresh perspective on the writer’s nemesis, writers block. Poets who attended were guided through a discursive series of writing exercises to overcome “getting it wrong” in their creative practice.
Each of the guest facilitators brought some of their best tips to write around, under, over and through the block, even stand on it to get our the participants past this writer’s block pain point. Enjoy!
Join us later in the year for this program will be revisited!
This is the first Writer's Building Block session for the Poets Built It community. Sharing their direct experiences as poets, PBI members paced themselves through a relaxed session of journaling and creative future-thinking. By unpacking their own writer's block, partricipant’s found solid action points to befriend it and make it useful.
Zena was was shortlisted for the Forward Prizes for Best Single Poem Performed for 2023.
After graduating from Middlesex University and studying storytelling and performance at The London International School for Performing Arts, Zena has been a professional writer/performance poet, curator and creative project developer for over 30 years.
The list of acclaimed artists she has worked with include Theaster Gates, Ackroyd and Harvey and Akram Khan.
Sam offered participants a tool kit of poetry writing exercises that will take you through a season of writer’s block.
His debut collection, ‘Life in Transit’ was published by Influx Press in 2012. He followed this with a book of original and translated poems from his time on the Western Saharan refugee camps in Algeria, ‘Settled Wanderers’, also published by Influx in 2015. ‘Dusk Steals the Daylight’. He performs under the stage name, Angry Sam.
He currently coordinates the Hackney branch of UK performance poetry network, Hammer and Tongue.
Francesca defined the inner critique as an element in the writing process that is there to "keep us safe and take care of us." With three simple but potent writing exercises, poetry was written and shared, and Francesca held the group with such generosity of creative and human spirit.
Her first solo show, ‘Chinese Whispers’, produced by Apples and Snakes in 2002, was seen as ground-breaking in its approach to performance poetry as a cross-arts form.
Francesca has since written short plays for The Royal Court, BBC Radios 3 and 4, worked with The Young Vic and ICT to create participatory community-led shows and held research residencies at Banff, Canada and The Mixed Reality Lab, Nottingham University. block.
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