Meeting Sunday, April 22nd

We discussed the success of this past Thursday's Open Mic Night and the talented writers we heard read that evening.

A member of the audience from the Open Mic Night visited our group with some questions about how she was going to fill a 45 minute presentation on poetry. It was suggested that she read a couple of poems and then provide the members of the group with a couple of prompts to write their own.

Prompts

Virginia provided the prompts this week, admitting that she got carried away into the stories as she came up with the prompts. All or part of a prompt may be used.

1. Joey thought it was the best April Fool's joke ever, but I was not amused.

2. T.S. Elliott said "April is the cruelest month". Cruel doesn't even begin to describe it.

3. He was running as fast as he could, but it wasn't fast enough. With a slurping sound, the thick mud swallowed his right shoe. He didn't even try to retrieve it. He struggled on.

4. I woke to the sound of ice grinding as it tried to push its way downriver. Huge chunks would shriek as they pushed against the granite cliffs and shout with voices of thunder as they hammered against their neighbours'. Even louder was the roar of the river, an over-bearing father hurrying his progeny along, pushing and pulling on them to get them to their destination.

5/ My grandfather has been gone for decades, but I can still hear his homilies, as though he were whispering in my ear. There's no time like the present. A stitch in time saves nine. Time waits for no man. I could go on all day, but you get the idea. They all seem to apply in my present situation.

6/ People said Nellie was crazy. A crazy witch. That's right, witch. Because Nellie could run her hands over an animal that everyone had given up for dead and whisper into its ear, and it would open its eyes and somehow stagger to its feet and start to recover. No one knew what she whispered because she never would work on people. She didn't like people much. But she loved animals, so she healed them. And after a while, people started to think she was the one who had made them sick in the first place. Cursed them, most likely.

7. If you ask people if they believe in magic, they will most likely tell you "no". They will lie. Because deep down inside, we all know magic exists. It is all around us.

8. If you could have a fabled creature as a pet, which one would you pick?

9. I was going down Yonge Street, carried by the river of people rushing back from their lunch breaks. The flow pushed against people surging in the opposite direction, their eyes distant and unseeing, as though they were already working on that spreadsheet or making that sales call. The street people were fallen branches impeding the current that eddied impatiently around them, their eyes dead and hopeless. Except for one.

10. When I was a child, I wanted to be....

Next Meeting, Sunday, May 6th, 1:30pm

Patricia will be leading.