I attended a Peterloo writing workshop at the weekend. I’m sharing my scribbles here, because I doubt I can send them anywhere.
The first activity was to pair up with another writer and find out five facts about them. Then we had to write a paragraph about that person, using those facts.
The five facts were:
Lives in Leeds
In his mid-forties
Speaks Spanish
Likes poetry
Would like to visit Egypt
I wrote:
He lived in Leeds for a long time, before he finally fulfilled his lifelong dream of moving to Egypt, where he lost his return ticket and thought “to hell with it” and stayed there.
As he likes poetry, he started a night where he read poetry in Spanish. Nobody understood a word he said, but they liked the sound of his words and paid lots of money to listen to him.
Now in his forties, he has been able to retire with all the money he earned from this.
For the second activity, we had to write about finding an item belonging to that person, if a similar event to Peterloo happened today.
A Place Without Shoes
Among the deserted phones, bottles and keys
Black, except for the read
The letter N, obscured on the trainer
I called out for its owner
As if that would cause him to appear
But this wasn’t a fairy-tale
More like a horror story
He wouldn’t get far without his shoes
But I feared he no longer needed shoes
For the last exercise, we to write something based on what might happen twelve months after the event.
Death by Trainer
They arrived in droves from Egypt
Where he was much loved
And from Spain
Where his poetry touched lives
Each one waving a trainer
As a symbol of the one they lost
Nobody was sure whether the first or the hundredth
Was the one to hit its mark
But the prime minister’s cause of death
Was record as death by trainer
After they were all hurtled through the air
In perfect synchronicity
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