All entries for Wednesday 15 October 2008

More exciting Eng Lit Soc things

Writing about web page http://www.warwickenglitsoc.tk/

More exciting English Society events are happening all the time! More specifically, tomorrow at 8pm in Kelsey's Bar, Leamington.

We will be drinking (or not, if you don't want to - we are equal opps) and playing weird and wonderful games involving beverages. From Kelsey's we will move on to Evolve and dance the night away.

(N.B. As you may have guessed, I am not using this primarily as a creative writing blog).

Madeleine Beresford : 15 Oct 2008 22:43 |  Tags: Drinking English Literature News Party Poetry Social |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Crock of shit (or the piece where I pretend to be a floor in love with a ceiling, badly)

This week's task I had a lot of trouble with, partly because I did it the night before (my computer was broken when I wanted to write it, and I HATE handwriting second drafts), and also because it was, well, difficult and I read too much Mina Loy that day. 

So this is a bit of it. To be completely redrafted, watch this space.

It ended with three drops of blood.

As everything ends.

I was not meant to think. I was not meant to observe. I felt ovals circle me; lights leave and return; incessant animals pass over.

A face. That is what they call it. A long oval, two flashes of intensity.

Something else – a soul, a spirit, a distraught emotion – in the flashes.

Red viscous liquid plashed thrice.

Then I was alive. On my surface lay an arc of silver. In its reflection I saw you. I loved you as I loved myself. I wanted to share all I had with you – I wanted to share these lights, these colours, these incessant emotions. The knife was cleansed, bloodied with the red.

Two ovals moved above me. I felt fear in the soles of the feet; I heard a declaration, a loss. Two hundred vague ovals passed over me and away. Two left behind.

Three drops of blood.

The ceiling eludes me. The walls plot against me. They convert the benches and the chairs and the tables and the heavy leaden pillars.

The walls know that my happiness means their demise. They know I long for the one above. They know I worship the three drops of red.

The two ovals entered here close together. I was not then alive. I saw nothing but their cores of phosphorescent feeling; I felt their bodies ebb and flow; I felt how they wanted each other. I felt a tie full of time winding them closer and closer, feathering a gentle slope.

The others watched. The others saw what I could not see. The others watched one lose; discussed another’s father; lost faith in each other and looked at the ceiling, at the one above. The one above who is the answer to everything. The one above I long to touch, to meet, surface to surface.

Madeleine Beresford : 15 Oct 2008 19:48 |  Tags: Icw20089 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Exercises Week 3

Writing about web page http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/sarahcuming

This is the fragments from a couple of exercises we did this week straight off the page. I thought I'd pop them up to fill in some space and just for amusement's sake.

Handbag (from a rewrite of Sarah's story "accessory") thinks in style of Ned Kelly's letter:

Mistress had a handbag called me my name it was as a matter of speaking i'm made of italian leather very expensive that got to thinking over that evening in my mind tho' 'course it's not a mind as such. That evening's all time echoing through my thoughts tho' 'course they aren't thoughts as such and it invades any time I think of rest any time I have for rest considerably.

Handbag in "futile" style from Queneau's "Exercises in Style":

How can an object describe the feeling of rape, of desecration? How can one express the imprint made by a chavvy individual with stubby fingers upon the consciousness of italian leather? How can one explain unwarranted passivity at the violation of buttery, creamy leather? How can one convery how thought permeates the inanimate with memories, viewpoints, voice? What does one become having left a living thing (a cow, to be precise) and continuing with being? How can one exist - move, lose, be with and not with - without finding structure? How can be a victim of a crime against another, much loved, and remain silent, not from choice but from very substance? How can one recall the inobtrusive, relaxed body and shut mouth of sitting in wait, in the cosmic sense for a slut of girl to come and disturb this stance?

How can one formulate the impression when the slut doesn't turn on the light, or announce her presence, but yanks an object so close that there is no chance of slipping away?

How can one extrapolate the unlikelihood of anyone outside the room being able to see one through the shield of her body? How can one translate the expression of violation? How can one describe the impression of stealing an image that isn't given back? How can one convey the person of a common little whore, rummaging around in a mistress' private things and suggest that she was taking what she fancied?

Madeleine Beresford : 15 Oct 2008 19:33 |  Tags: Funstuff Icw20089 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem