We hosted a series of workshops with poet Katy Hastie on creative writing. The workshops have been created in response to the circumstances that we all experienced during the pandemic. The second in the series was ‘And Still I Rise’ and looked at how creative writing can support mental health.
We looked at the poetry of June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Mary Oliver and Maya Angelou, and talked about the benefits of writing for your well-being. We undertook some exercises to get us started, thinking about what we had been doing throughout the day, and Katy talked us through ideas for free writing in response to the poems we had just heard read, focusing on words or phrases we had picked out and thinking about some of the techniques the poems used. The session ended with some members sharing their work and some tips on how to build on the writing we had achieved.
“This creative writing event was one of the most important events that I attended at Thistles & Dandelions. I learned how to reduce stress by some steps of free writing. I realised what are my strengths points, and how to use and improve them to change myself and my everyday life. I realised that I can change my life to become better by small steps with creative writing.”
Zainab, T&D member
Also in this series of talks we had: - A True Story Well Told: creative writing for blogging and telling your story - How to be a Flaneuse: creative writing for wandering women
Thank you to Katy Hastie for your time and skills, and to our volunteers for sharing their work with us.
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