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May writing prompts

I hope you had a restful bank holiday weekend. With another to look forward to at the end of the month I hope you have more time to get out, as Spring comes into full flush and the light draws into the evenings. 

The landscape has begun to colour at Rye Harbour, with blues, purples, whites and yellows as coastal shingle flowers emerge. A summary of what you're likely to find this month at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve is in the link: What to see in May. You can also catch up with sightings during April in the summary from Emma Chaplin on the blog here.

If you are able to visit, and keen to learn more about the birds of Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, you can join James Duncan for the day on 13th May (10am-3pm) as part of the adult learning programme – click for more information.

For this month's writing exercises we're also focussing on birds and bird song. Christina Rossetti, Victorian poet and Romantic, wrote A Bird Song at the end of the nineteenth century. Her poem, an ode to bird song, is a lyrical poem celebrating nature. Constructed of three lines in each of three stanzas there's a clear rhyming pattern (AAA, BBC, BBD). You can also listen to it being read here. In this poem Rossetti reflects on the year before and the year to come. As we pass through the seasons we often notice how things shift from year to year. Often associated with Romantic poets, odes are commonly a celebration of the natural world.

Exercise 1: Either drawing on your memory, one of the links to Rye Harbour sightings above (and below), or something you can see on a walk, or while looking out of the window, find something you would like to write an ode to. This could be an unusual or surprising encounter with wildlife, landscape, or event you see the beauty in. It could be something you know well or is new to you, something familiar or unfamiliar. It could subvert the notion of an ode and be in praise of something unlikely.

For example, I am regularly surprised by the ability of plants to self seed in the most inhospitable of places, and finding things flowering in apparently barren, urban spaces is something I take great joy in. I am currently admiring a cyclamen which is growing in the cracks between one of the steps to my garden, which by rights would be trodden on and squashed. I can't see any cyclamen near by and have no idea where it has come from, but it feels all the more special to have arrived and survived where it is. I've followed it's emergence, making sure to step around it, marvelling at its achievement every time I climb the steps.

You may notice something else and have something particularly important to you you would like to write about. It doesn't have to rhyme, but it can be an interesting exercise to use the constraints of rhyme. Look again at Christina Rossetti's example to see the patterns she has used. 
If you aren't able to get out to visit Rye Harbour, Manager Barry Yates is recording sounds of the Nature Reserve. Sunday 1st May was International Dawn Chorus Day. All across the world the start of a new month was marked by celebrating birdsong. You can listen to individual birds and learn their song on Wildlife Trusts website. Barry recorded the dawn chorus sung in at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve on Sunday for us all to enjoy – if you follow the link you can listen to half an hour of birdsong, capturing something of what it might be like to wake up at Rye Harbour (the recording also shows each birdsong named).
In honor of 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird' by Wallace Stevens, a list of 13 poems that look at birds in different ways, draws on different metaphors and meaning in connection with birds. From Emily Dickinson's Hope is the Thing with Feathers, to Edgar Allen Poe's Raven, there are examples of poems that travel through themes of exile, freedom, wisdom and patience.

Exercise 2: Reflect on your relationship with birds, particular experiences, or one of the links above on bird song, and connect with the response you have to it. Write a second piece, which could be a poem, or could be prose, and explore your connection with the natural world, what these themes mean to you and play with different ways of representing birds and/or birdsong that has particular meaning for you.
I'm really pleased to be able to share a forthcoming nature writing webinar I'm running with Sussex Wildlife Trust on the 10th May. This session will be led by Nic Wilson, writer and Guardian Country Diarist, and supported by ME Action UK. This is a part of another project I'm running, and I wanted to open up the workshops to you. They will be predominantly online (all are free, with thanks to an Arts Council England grant), with an in person session at Wealden Literary Festival, for anyone attending (if so, please do come and say hello!) – a full list of workshops will be posted at Moving Mountains web page.

I'm looking forward to being able to plan workshops at Rye Harbour soon too. I'm still recovering from a broken ankle currently so things are a little delayed. I'm hoping to launch the residency's public engagement project later in the month and will share news of this soon.
In response to some of your feedback and questions, I spotted a new writing opportunity I wanted to share. Frogmore Press are inviting submissions to the Frogmore Poetry Prize. You can find out more, and how to submit, on the link here. There is a fee (£4 - for multiple submissions) but also prizes and 100 will be selected for publication in the forthcoming Frogmore Papers. The deadline for submission is 31st May.

If you haven't already found Angela Carr's website, there are links to regular competitions, submissions and other writing opportunities.

I don't have affiliations with either of these links but thought they might be of interest to those of you who have expressed an interest in submitting your work and pursuing publication.
Happy writing!
Thank you for your support and engagement with this project. It's been lovely to hear from those of you who have been in touch.

See you next month...
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May Writing Prompts - Rye Harbour Writing Residency

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