Category Archives: Workshops

Writing for UNICEF #3

Writing for UNICEF, ,

On May 18, 2021, people from Kenya and Ireland and Spain and California took part in an  ONLINE WRITE-A-THON to raise funds for UNICEF’s #GiveTheWorldAShot campaign. You can still make a donation – our fundraiser will remain active until June 30 – and you can donate directly to vaccinaid.org at any time.

Participants wrote in response to Covid-themed paintings by children, teenagers and young adults from around the world. Every Saturday until the end of June I’ll post a selection of their “Writing for UNICEF”. This week we have three poems, from Eileen Acheson, Patricia Weldon and Caroline Mason. The first two were written in response to all four prompts: a painting from the National Library Children’s Covid-Art Collection (name of artist unknown); “Wild Imagination” by James Moonan, Ireland; “Healthcare Heroes” by Muzzamil Mughal, Pakistan; and “You Are Not Alone” by Samira Mammadova, Azerbaijan.

UNICEF online write-a-thon 4 images

HEY.

Eileen Acheson, Co Tipperary, Ireland 

Cerise, green, yellow
turquoise, red, purple 
blue, dog, people, racoon
flying pink duck
dandelion, daisy 
disconnected youth in grey.
Hey.

STAY HOME, DANCE
LISTEN TO MUSIC
READ and MEDITATE MORE
LOVE MORE
Hey.

Keyboard buckles.
Christmas tree wilts.
Gifts returned 
The cat has turned his back
on another bloody Zoom.
Hey.

I got my vaccine today.
Sin é.
Hey.

FOUR IMAGES FOR VACCINAID

Patricia Weldon, Tara, Co. Meath, Ireland

The boy in the window draws my attention.
He sits with his hands on his knees,
gazing into no-man’s land.
Colour and excitement are all outside his window.
Flowers, exotic pink flamingo, striped racoon, blue skies, far distant hills,
all outside his window.
He sits and stares,
Hands on his knees.
It is grey on the inside of the window.

‘If only I could join the outside world.
If only I could fly freely, sticking my neck out, seeking those foreign lands,
Like the pink flamingo.
All the wonders in the world and here I sit,
Nothing doing, nothing happening.'
'It’s a bit grim in here,' he thinks.
‘It’s nice to hold my knees, a sort of comfort,
like hugging my own body, holding myself together,’ he thinks
as the world passes by on the outside of the window.
‘I suppose I must stay in here.
Safety for others my duty.’

The picture below the boy explains the circumstance for the indoor habitation.
A medic in goggles and mask.
PPE the word that has dominated our landscape along with Covid-19 and numbers.
Endless numbers, so meaningless and so mean filled.
This covid-19 is filled with meanness, stops us all in our tracks.
Locks us indoors for days and weeks and months.
Wearing masks and gowns to come close to another, it has been a stark reality.

Tracking left now, the picture of the girl with the multiple arms.
Maybe she is a mum home schooling while working full time and more.
Not sure if she has time to dance and meditate, listen to music and read.
Perhaps in her dreams as she falls into bed exhausted from multitasking from morning to night fall.

Then we come to the image top left,
our new reality, zoom calls, zoom meetings, zoom webinars.
Little did I know 5 years ago when I first met zoom that zoom would take over our living rooms in such a spectacular way.
Could have invested then would be a millionaire now!
It is amazing to think what we thought was so important before
is so insignificant now.
They are alive.
We are alive.
What more can we want.
A lot more thinks the boy as he sits in the window.
Is this all there is to life?
Where has my future gone?

It’s not enough for his soul to sit and stare.
He needs the colour and the fun.
It’s a dilemma for sure.
The young held back to keep others safe,
Yet their well being depends on the well being of the youth.
A dilemma I am glad I don’t have to decide.
Yet these boys are my boys and I see the price they have paid.

It’s time now to let them experience their dreams,
return the colour to their lives,
before it is too late
for their mental gates to re-open.

BRAVE NEW WORLD

Caroline Mason, Co Donegal, Ireland

Image credit: “Healthcare Heroes” by Muzzamil Mughal, Pakistan

I like the way it billows in and out as I breathe,
The linen fitting snuggly under my chin.
The soft cloth caresses my lips, stray fibres tickling my tongue.
My warm breath mists the visor, obscuring my identity. 
I feel safe behind it.
Today I walked home, one of the many,
Masked and visor-ed and unremarkable. 
If anything, people are scared of me now.
If I walk too close they shrink away or swerve around me.
I am their real and present danger.
Not the other way around, like it used to be.
Before the plague. 

My heart quickens with excitement and anticipation for a new way of living.
I’m not afraid anymore.
I don’t want to run.
I can stand my ground. 
Take my place in the world.
I smile behind the mask.
I laugh inside.
I am free to be me at last.

Writing for UNICEF #2

Writing for UNICEF, ,

On May 18, 2021, Monica Corish and Tom Sigafoos hosted an ONLINE WRITE-A-THON to raise funds for UNICEF’s #GiveTheWorldAShot campaign. You can still make a donation – our fundraiser will remain active until June 30, and you can donate directly to vaccinaid.org at any time.

Participants from Kenya to California wrote in response to Covid-themed paintings by children, teenagers and young adults from around the world. Every Saturday till the end of June I’ll post a selection of their “Writing for UNICEF”.

We have two prose essays this week, and a haiku. All three were written in response to the painting “Health Care Heroes” by Muzzamil Mughal.  The first essay, by Jarso Mokku of Isiolo, Kenya, is called “Mass Grave Burial Is the New Norm”; the Himalaya haiku is by me, Monica Corish; and the second essay “There’s so Much in her Gaze” is by Mary Foley from Sligo. 

MASS GRAVE BURIAL IS THE NEW NORM

Jarso Mokku, Isiolo, Kenya

A story inspired by the picture of a woman wearing a face mask – a stark reminder that in Africa our people are still dying in record numbers without reporting.

 In The Name of Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful. Say!  I seek refuge in the Lord of the dawn. From the evil of what is created. And from the evil of darkness when it spreads. From the past to that year when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 a global pandemic. Two years on, people world over are still dying in record numbers especially in the poorer countries without reporting. This pandemic is far from over and seems unstoppable as its rage continues to spread across the world among all communities, like the bush fires from the forest to dry grass land.

In Africa, the cases are increasing by day and all burial sites that were set aside to serve more than fifty years are full, mass grave burial is the new norm.  World travel, inter community cooperation and family connections have come to a standstill.  All learning institutions are closed, and all children are locked indoors. Continue reading Writing for UNICEF #2 →

Writing for UNICEF #1

Writing for UNICEF, ,

On May 18, 2021, Monica Corish and Tom Sigafoos hosted an ONLINE WRITE-A-THON to raise funds for UNICEF’s #GiveTheWorldAShot campaign. We’ve already raised £1345, and we’re aiming for £2000. You can still make a donation – this fundraiser will remain active until June 30.

Participants from Kenya to California wrote in response to Covid-themed paintings by children, teenagers and young adults from around the world. Every Saturday until the end of June I’ll publish a selection of their “Writing for UNICEF” here on my blog.

HOWL

Rachel Webb, Co Leitrim, Ireland

Image credit: Wild Imagination by James Moonan, 15, Ireland

james-moonan-wild-imagination-ireland-1I sit here alone – up close against the day as it trickles into dusk, or drifting in a space that stretches from my seat to the moon – silent.

These are the things I try to bear in mind: my breath – easy and rich with oxygen; the palm of my hand along her soft fur and the gentle engine of her purr; my eyes filled with the colours beyond my window; the fridge humming its cold tune around olives and ice-cream, pesto and peas, soya milk for the one endless cup of tea.

Gratitude is lying in bed remembering the song I danced to as the pasta boiled, the wave of my neighbour as she passed my fence, my sister’s face on our WhatsApp call. ‘I have it all’ I whisper into the empty air above my body, ‘I-have-it-all’.

This morning the sun shines and sweet scents drift through my open window, a bird in the bush is worth twenty in somebody else’s. She sings and I lift my head to reply. I hear my response – a long moan of a howl. How out of place in the bright bee-haunted buzzing of Spring – this hungry Winter midnight of a howl. A lonely wolf calling for the pack: ‘Come back, come back, come back, come back. My loves, my life, please please come back’.

COVID

Cathleen Young, Santa Monica, California, USA

Image credit: Health Care Heroes by Muzzamil Mughal, Pakistan

muzzamil-mughal-pakistan

When will this nightmare end? Will it end? Or will the nasty little virus just endlessly roam the globe, an airborne whirling dervish, leaving body bags stacked in air-conditioned trucks in its wake? I’m remembering my microbiology from my training. What exactly is this demon killer? A tiny scrap of DNA held together by a little protein jacket? And yet — in every cell of my body — lives the DNA that makes me me. That must be the good DNA. The DNA that makes me want to smile at my 17-year-old twin girls. Not the DNA that kills me. If I’m being honest, I don’t always mind when my goggles steam up. Like a camera lens with a filter to make everything prettier, I don’t see the suffering quite so clearly. The desperate eyes, the hands that clutch at me, the fingers I have to pry off when someone down the hall begins to die in earnest and we must all rush over, the crash cart skidding down the gleaming hallway, an orchestrated dance of syringes and paddles and chest compressions so fierce we sometimes hear a rib crack. Especially in the old ones. Their bones as fragile as hollow bird bones — except they can’t fly. I sometimes welcome the moment we stick a breathing tube down someone’s throat — right after we slide a needle into the port — paralyzing them so they don’t fight the tube. Their eyes go quiet. No more desperation, just the long, slow death that usually awaits them, alone, with no one holding their hands and crying at their bedside. 

Online write-a-thon in aid of UNICEF’s ‘Give the World a Shot’ campaign.

Writing for UNICEF, , ,

We aim to bring 100 people together online, all writing to raise funds for UNICEF’s “Give the World a Shot” campaign.

You can help by joining our online creative writing workshop on May 18 from 7:30 pm to 9 pm. This inspiring and encouraging Amherst-method workshop will be hosted by Monica Corish and Tom Sigafoos and co-facilitated by a group of experienced writers and workshop leaders. Everybody is welcome to participate, whether they are practiced writers or completely new to creative writing. 

We ask everyone to make a minimum donation of €10 when they register – but we encourage participants to donate as much as they can. And even if you can’t join us, you can still make a donation…

You’ll find details of how to donate and how to register for the workshop on UNICEF’s crowdfunding website www.vaccinaid.org/unicef-vaccine-write-a-thon

If more than 100 people register, we will run a second write-a-thon on June 29th.

UNICEF is ensuring no one is left behind in the race to vaccinate against COVID-19. People in India… South America… Africa… are still exposed to the virus, and the whole world is still at risk of new variants.

UNICEF’s goal is to ensure that the most vulnerable in every country – not just the wealthier ones – are protected, and that patients get the urgent medical supplies and oxygen they need.

This is the biggest health and logistics project in history. UNICEF need your help to deliver 2 billion vaccines, 5.6 million tests and 5.5 million treatments around the world this year.

“the border between us”: a creativity up-skilling programme

Miscellaneous, Workshops, ,

Excellent opportunity for anyone in the Leitrim / Fermanagh region who wants to learn the skills of visual storytelling, while exploring the political, personal, real, imagined and socially-distanced borders that impact on our lives.

This 12 week series of free, online workshops is hosted by the Glens Centre/Across the Lines, and facilitated by writer Monica Corish and visual artist Rachel Webb. Full details, including how to book, at http://www.facebook.com/events/414642819525558

Nolan+LACUNA+03

Image Credit https://www.katenolan.ie/pettigo

Writing Together in the Zoom Room – the pros and the cons

Workshops, Writing advice, Writing prompts from the cocoon, ,

images

I’ve been leading Amherst Method writing groups since 2008 – in arts venues, in community centres, in my local library, and from the sitting room of my house in north Leitrim. In late March 2020, shortly after lockdown was announced, we left my sitting-room and entered into the Zoom-room.

The first few sessions were challenging. Together we learned a new and unfamiliar technology; we learned how to function as a group in a virtual space; we learned how to be spontaneous, while also being respectful of each other’s voices.

Some things stayed the same. As before, people gathered once a fortnight to write together in a safe and inspiring environment, based on the Amherst Method guidelines. At each session I offered a prompt and invited the group to write in response. Silence fell as words poured onto the page, for 10, 20, 30 minutes. If someone got stuck I could meet them one-to-one in a private “breakout room”, to help them find their flow again.

As before, I invited people to read what they had written; the group practiced the skill of “close listening” – a vital skill for every writer; and those who chose to read received positive feedback that helped them develop their voices. People wrote about everything under the sun in these sessions, including the minuscule virus that had upended our lives. One person wrote the first chapter of a witty Zoom-room murder mystery…

Sometimes a video connection broke down, sometimes the audio was glitchy – in rural Ireland strong broadband is a gift, not a given. The disadvantages of writing together online are obvious: you don’t get to meet your fellow participants in the flesh; you can’t read their body language or hear the small gasps of admiration as you read your work; you don’t get to chat one-to-one during the break.

But there are advantages. You can join in from anywhere in the world. And you don’t have to get into your car on a dark, blustery winter’s night to drive to my sitting-room in north Leitrim.

Writing prompt for the Crossing Borders Open-Mic: Interiors and Edges

Writing advice, Writing prompts from the cocoon, ,

The endlessly inventive and productive people at Across the Lines (IFI) / Open Mic Manor / The Thing Itself are inviting video or audio contributions for their next Crossing Borders Open Mic Online (IFI). The theme for this event is “Way-points and Markers” – the places, journeys and signposts that have marked our individual and collective transitions over the last three months.  They invited me to come up with a prompt to spark contributions. Here it is:

Hestia is the Greek goddess of interiors, of contemplative time and space. She is the hearth-fire that makes a house into a home.

Perspective of a dutch interior viewed from a doorway *oil on canvas *103 x 70 cm *1642 – 1678

Hermes is the trickster god of travel, trade, computers, protector of doorways and boundaries, the messenger and mover, the communicator.

In her books “Goddesses in Everywoman” and “Gods in Everyman”, Jean Shinoda Bolen tells how these two very different archetypes  are related. In Greek households the “herm” – a pillar symbolizing Hermes – stood just outside the front door, in a distinct but intimate connection with Hestia’s hearth-fire at the centre .

I invite you to see in your mind’s eye a place that represents the containment of “lockdown”; and a place that represents the process of “unlocking”. These places may be in the geography of your home, your county, your country, the world; or virtual places; or the space inside the arms of someone you love – a hug you are grateful to have received during lockdown, or a hug you are still yearning towards.

Whatever spaces come to you, feel them through your senses, through smell, and sight and touch and sound. And then write about these two spaces, placing them in relationship each with the other.

Image by Varun Kulkarni from Pixabay crop

Photo credits: