Apologies for the formatting at the end of this post. WordPress’s ‘new improved posting experience’ is failing to deliver as promised.

Patricia Oxley’s editorial in Acumen78 focused on the lack of suitability for publication of many poems begun in workshops. I do sympathise if she’s inundated with unpolished submissions born of writing group prompts, but I also want to present an alternative perspective. I encounter publishable work resulting from such prompts quite frequently nowadays. I’m not making great claims for my own powers here – it’s what the writer does with the prompt that counts. Nor am I entirely advocating Keats’s naturally-as-leaves-to-a-tree requirement. But I’ve worked with enough writing groups to know that, given an unexpected, external stimulus, i.e., one they didn’t seek themselves, and a time limit, writers produce some remarkable work that wouldn’t have happened in the same time period in their private writing space. For those who seek publication, their writing will of course need some editing and tweaking and rest time before submission – both it and the magazine editor deserve this respect –  but I regularly witness how minimal this can sometimes be, before work is submitted to and accepted by respected journals.

The rapid response to workshop stimuli is equally applicable to beginners, who frequently exceed their own expectations and gain confidence as a result. Many workshop participants, for many reasons, do not see publication as the main outcome of their experience. I figure many of the South Side writers come on a Friday for some regular writing practice, and to hear how their peers respond to the same prompt. If something publishable happens as a result, that’s a bonus. I don’t think they would submit in haste, omitting the usual phases of rest and re-drafting.

I once led a workshop at a Lapidus conference, where participants made poems originating from the rhythms of their own breath, heartbeat and footfall. Graham Harthill was kind enough to observe that ‘the workshop is the poetic moment’. I was privileged to be able to experience this kind of moment myself as a participant last week. Dumfries and Galloway’s Spring Fling open studios event held a preview exhibition at the Dundas St Gallery in Edinburgh. It was delightful to meet one of the Spring Fling artists, and former South Side Writer, Isabell Buenz, who makes exquisite paper shoes.

Marjorie Gill, writer in residence at Spring Fling, ran a workshop, using the ‘duo prompt’ and metaphor-generating method of applying vocabulary the writer thinks of in association with artwork A, to their choice of artwork B. We had three short periods of writing. Unusually, I hadn’t seen either A or B beforehand and hadn’t had to think about what to do with them. The connections I started to make, the creative potential that was opened up, startled (and eventually exhausted) me. I see this (ideally not the exhaustion bit) happening with others on a weekly basis. That it happened to me provided confirmation of the value of what I do: workshops work. Personally I am a tweaker, a slow-burner, a perfectionist who finds it hard to say ‘it is finished’ (or abandoned) and to press ‘send’, or commit to the post box. I sent a couple of concrete poems (rare genre for me) off to Marjorie for the Spring Fling website. These were inspired jointly by Isabell’s shoes, a ceramic bird sculpture and a print of a deer that incorporated some text. I shall continue to work, with gratitude, at greater length on words and ideas triggered by these artworks.

The National Galleries Scotland education dept isn’t running CW courses this year as these don’t enrol as well as, say, textiles or life drawing. I had a half-full beginners class in the autumn who all wanted to continue, so, supplemented by occasional others on my mailing list who’d been to gallery writing events, we formed Third Thursday. We meet on the eponymous day in a different gallery each month, and I use the art on display for whatever writing prompts and themes it suggests (though there is of course an argument for a more arbitrary relationship between stimulus and product).