Tag: writing

Categories
Can You Hear Us Inclusion Poetry

There is a long cactus in the window

A reader may not speak a particular language, but may nonetheless subconsciously pick up on patterns & rhythm important to poetry. Enjoy this poem in both Romanian & English.

Este un cactus mare la fereastră

Asemenea celui din vechiul bloc

Nu mai este acolo, nici eu nu mai sunt

Deoarece am plecat și sunt departe

Unde ei știu că sunt de altundeva

Sunt precum nuca în perete

Peretele deja crăpat al unei case bătrâne

Neîncăpător și așteptând să cad

Just like the one from the old building

It’s not there anymore, nor am I

Since I have left and I am far

Where they know I am from somewhere else

I am like a nut in the wall

The already cracked wall of an old home

Ill fitting and waiting to fall out

by Ioana ‘Ana’ Mateescu, Ryde

Categories
Event Flash Fiction News

Creative Placemaking in Sandown


“The Sandown Tarot is an ambitious placemaking project that evocatively offers new visions for the town’s future. Writer Anmarie Bowler has conjured enigmatic tales inspired by everything from community land trusts and social action to save wildlife, to the power of hope and togetherness. To capture these narratives, artist Tommy Brentnall beautifully illustrates each card in a unique style that hybridises the natural and the futuristic. This project truly encapsulates how creatives can inspire hope, generate new ideas, and lead the way in thinking about a brighter future.”
–Tracy Mikich, Boojum&Snark

Opening 13 Sept, 6-7.30pm. Join us, everyone welcome.

Boojum&Snark has emerged as a leading cultural placemaking organisation in Sandown, a town that has been consistently overlooked in strategic planning and funding decisions at both local and national levels. Operating in a constituency that grapples with socioeconomic challenges, this innovative place has been instrumental in landing Sandown on the cultural map. By transforming a long-vacant high street shop front, Boojum&Snark uses art and community initiatives to provide alternative perspectives of the town, working to ignite renewal and instill a sense of pride in the community.

Categories
Essay Flash Fiction Travel Try This

Eurostarred*


Past Stalingrad and Rome, pronounced Hrom by a disembodied Metro Woman. My school-girl French left securely in the classroom. A man from Bradford in Paris, his tiny round glasses the toast of the town. My huge glints out of place in the City of Light, every third person sporting coin-sized spectacles. Stylish and dismissive older women, eye-wandering older men and young eyes on the lash are Hockney knock-offs this season. The real spectacle, a life’s work in the Bois de Boulogne. The man’s throwing shade(s).

*or That’s The Way I Saw It.

by Anmarie Bowler

Categories
Event Flash Fiction Try This Write This

Ventnor Fringe Menu

Fresh & Delicious Fare

Morning Hot Coffee in a Blue Paper Cup

Chew the Fat with a Half-Dressed NCC Clown

Candy Floss, Please Candy Floss

Watch Lady in Pineapple Print Dress Eat Fresh-Dressed Crab Sandwich

Beer in Reusable Cup which will Join 9 Others in Cupboard at Home

Hot and Muggy in The Big Top Bottle of Water

No Candy Floss?

Half-Fat Ice Cream Cone Splits Down the Middle, Lands on Pavement

Sausage Sandwich, Even Though You Swore Off Meat Last Week

Ginger Beer for Looming Belly Ache

Drink In the Stars over the Water Nightcap

It’s Classified.

Brevity and VEX Spoken Word Collective hosted a writing workshop on the FREE Fringe, Saturday, 19 July. A small group of committed and talented writers created work on the spot that will appear in a Fringe Zine – The Classifieds – available next week. It’s a limited run, so be sure to grab one, and have a read. Add it to your growing Island zine collection. And eat up this year’s super fresh fringe.

Fresh & Delicious Fare by Anmarie Bowler

https://vfringe.co.uk/

Categories
Event News Q&A

Brevity Presents.

Brevity is pleased to present Katie Daysh In Conversation at Department, in Ryde, on 24 July, 8pm. You’re invited to a Q&A with the author of the novel The Times called Best Historical Fiction of 2023 and 2025. Since her first book Leeward debuted, Islander Katie Daysh has earned the highest of praise; her Age of Sail trilogy making firm fans of both critics and readers alike. Along with the Q&A, you’ll enjoy evocative staged readings from her work and an opportunity to have your books signed by the author. Join us at Department, the Island’s buzzing new arts hub, for a fascinating conversation with this compelling writer –

https://department.byretail.net/menu/Events-Gigs

Categories
Event Flash Fiction News

Can You Hear Us?

Creative Island Secures Funding for Major Cultural Initiative

Brevity is proud & honoured to be a confirmed partner.

Categories
Event Flash Fiction Poetry Try This

Mark your calendar.

Thursday, 10 April, 2025

In Her Own Words

Readings from Island writers – hear sharp, raw, funny & insightful writing from women with something to say. FREE but drop Jean an email to let her know you’ll be there.

email jean28owen@gmail.com

Categories
Poetry

St. Edmund’s Wootton

A thousand year old

walled garden

Norman plants of prayer and chant

breathing quietly inside

by Barbara Knowles, Wootton

Categories
Poetry

The Ripple Effect

You aged and aged again
I thought it only happened once
But you became slower
Kept your wit, lost your edge
Leaned into the three of us
Grateful for support
But knowing you would fall without it

Every day a book of puzzles
From unlocking a hotel door
To tearing open a sugar sachet
A gentle confusion
Paper clipped debit card
Post it note instructions
Pocketed together like a mini comfort blanket

I was surprised that some people didn’t take the time to care
‘What did she say?’
Your world became muffled
Still sharp eyed but hearing impaired now
You’d outrun your nine lives years ago
Visits to the doctor’s lead to hospital trips and dreaded nights in A&E
Then falls in the house and garden, no ambulance in sight

At 82 your parked car was hit by a drunken driver
‘You couldn’t make it up!’ you said
‘It was outside the salon where mother was getting her hair cut.’
You were less than a mile from home and walked away unscathed
The car written off

I love how you talked yourself round
Circular conversations from ‘woe is me’ to ‘it could be worse!’
Maybe the Army taught you that
‘I’m enjoying myself’ you said with surprise
On your way back from holiday
It wasn’t new places that sparked you
It was the familiar
And the company that surrounded you

by Caroline Diamond, Ryde

Categories
Flash Fiction

10 Tender Moments Which Don’t Appear in My Family Tree

It’s the way he helps her up when she falls off the swing, and it’s how he wipes away her tears with his grubby handkerchief.

It’s her face when she sees his expression, as crushed as the daisies he brought her in his pocket, and it’s the way she puts them in a jam-jar and tells him they’re beautiful.

It’s two hands entwined in the darkness of the picture-house, a film they never remembered, and a clumsy kiss in a doorway.

It’s the way their eyes meet as they leave the church.

It’s a few sweet words in a letter read a hundred times while he’s away, and it’s the memory of his soft kiss, lingering on the back of her neck.

It’s the way she smooths her hands over her belly to feel the baby stirring, and it’s the glow in her eyes as she gazes at their sleeping child.

It’s her gentle touch as she cleans the dirt from their son’s grazed knee, and it’s her surging pride as he grins and cycles off again.

It’s how, after twenty years, he still has a twinkle in his eye when she comes to bed, and the way she kisses his temple and lets him sleep late the next morning.

It’s the way he holds her hand when the doctor gives them the news.

It’s the way he lays a single rose on her grave, and it’s their son’s arm around his shoulders as he helps his father home.

by Emily Gillatt-Ball, Ryde