Bell chimes workshop rhymes

Jo Bell Workshop

Workshops, full of anvils, lathes and maybe a vice or two, unless it’s the last day of the twentieth Swindon Festival of Literature when it’s something else entirely. An afternoon in the company of Canal Laureate and all round poetic planet Jo Bell got rid of the heavy machinery and metalwork but kept just enough of the vice for a sparky afternoon of poetic graft. Preferring to reject long winded read arounds of work in progress in favour of lots of exercises, Bell made sure that everyone left with a new piece of work or two. Using sharply focused examples from Tony Hoagland, Paul Summers and Norman MacCaig discussion was relaxed but always poetic. Inspiration seemed to come easy, especially when complemented by the crow of a cockerel or intervention of a sheep – such are the glories of a workshop at Lower Shaw Farm. Poets wrote poems and friendships were forged as the festival drew to a close in a creative, word filled way.