Reflections on the Artsbarge Black Sheep Writing Day, October 2024
Following the launch of our first anthology, beautifully bound and printed by Becca Drake, we gather one rainy October morning on the Artsbarge, moored near York town centre, for a day of writing workshops and letter-press printing. The barge in question is currently under transformation from a local heritage ex-cargo vessel to a fully accessible, community-focused arts space, in a project led by Hannah West. We were fortunate to have commandeered the Artsbarge for our first Black Sheep ‘launch party’ back in August, and thanks to Kai West for inviting us back to use the space as a writing retreat this Autumn.
When we arrive, the top deck, with its red-panel flooring, is partly covered by a tarp where a new roof is being built. A doorway leads down a wooden staircase into the hull, a cavernous space fitted with fairy lights and yellow walls that look like melted wax. In the hull, there is a raised stage under a window spotlight which you can look down on from the top-deck. This morning, the floor is covered in confetti and footprints from a recent gig. We pull together some chairs and sofas in a circle and sit cradling our mugs of warm tea. It feels like sitting in the ribcage of a large, creaky sea monster.
There are some newcomers to the group, in addition to those of us who have written with Black Sheep before, and of course those who are writing with us from a distance (Lin, and Mia, and Alex). Ed, a history student with a love of performance poetry and a penchant for making strong cups of tea; Tiana, an A-Level student in theatre; and Rowan, an established poet, composer and sound artist from Bristol who has drifted up to York for the weekend. We are also joined by Chloe, PhD student in poetry, and co-runner of York’s fantastic ‘Howler’s’ poetry open mic. Becca, as always, makes us all feel welcome and included as she goes over the plan for the day: a few warm-up writing exercises, followed by a homophonic translation workshop led by myself, some hot vegetarian chilli for lunch, then a writing from photographs and archives workshop run by Chloe, time to write independently, and an afternoon of printing on Becca’s clunky letter-press contraption (which I’m told is an Adana recently brought up to York from Cornwall, where it was used by our friends at Guillemot Press).
After a break, we start on the translation workshop. This is my first time running a poetry workshop, so I am quite nervous. Recently, I have been thinking a lot about what is lost and gained through translation and whether translation is actually possible, given that every language is entwined with specific histories and cultures. After experimenting with various approaches to translation, I have come across a more experimental technique known as ‘homophonic translation’. Homophonic translation consists of translating a piece of text by sound rather than sense. In other words, to approximate with words in one language the sound of words in another. For my workshop, I have brought all the non-English poetry books I could find at home. After introducing homophonic translation, I ask everyone to choose a poem in a language they don’t know and rewrite it in English using this method. I always find this exercise interesting as it brings up unexpected images and forces me to write in ways I normally wouldn’t. After this exercise, it is time for lunch. Thankfully, Becca has brought enough vegetarian chilli to feed the entire neighbourhood.
After feeding our weary poet-souls, we sit down together for the archive writing workshop with Chloe. The workshop begins with a colour writing exercise, where we choose from an assortment of named colours, and do five minutes of free writing using the colour as a prompt. This exercise is unexpectedly revealing as I start to realise I have chosen colours for the specific feelings they evoke in me. For example, a misty seascape. It is a perfect primer for the next writing exercise, which involves writing from photographs. Chloe has brought with her a collection of postcards with archive photographs of Victorian women. I choose a fading portrait. Having done the colour writing exercise just before, it is interesting to note how my writing about the misty seascape starts to bleed into my writing about the photograph, both of which revolve around things disappearing. Caitlin also joins us for this exercise and responds in a totally different way by writing miniature biographies of the women in the photographs, with surprising visceral details.
After this exercise, we take some time to write independently. Meanwhile, we take turns to work with Becca on the Adana press, selecting one line from our writing and typesetting it using a composing stick. After we have chosen a line, we arrange them into a collaborative poem. We arrange print proofs of our independent lines on cards on the barge’s stage, then agree collaboratively on how our lines should fit together, print our poem on pre-printed A6 cards illustrated by Artsbarge team member, local musician, and printmaker Kai West. and decide if we need to make any adjustments to the final proof. As we print, we are also joined by Hannah working on carpentry for the roof in the background, and she tells us some of the barge’s history. Towards the end of the day, Alex – another Black Sheep poet, and assistant editor at Becca’s cupboard poetry press House Martin – also joins us (better late than never!). At one point I notice he has disappeared, so I go onto the upper deck to look for him. I find him seated in a corner scribbling in his notebook, gazing at the rain.
I haven’t always been a fan of writing workshops. I used to think poetry was something that happened in solitary confinement, that it existed in the internal realm of thoughts and emotions which could only be accessed when a person was alone and therefore not distracted. Over the last few years, I’ve changed my mind. I think poetry exists in the shared environment between people. I don’t mean we can only write in groups, because poems still need to be individually crafted. I mean that poetry is made of intersubjectivity. We can still go away and write our poems, but having experienced the conscious feeling of writing together, we are reminded of the shared space between us. Together we listened to the invisible heart of that cold, damp morning. We heard it beating.