Saturday 29 June 2013

Gawain, 2013: the adventure begins



and Gawain has probably been sidelined already...he has had adventures, we haven't!

An exciting and damp day at Wycoller Country Park has given our "narrative poem"project a big boost with ideas about places where adventures might happen, characters we might use and encounters that might befall our heroes. Our aim is to create a story-poem whose process has encouraged children to extend their vocabulary, to enjoy poetry with rhythm and alliteration but not worrying about rhyme, and to meet other ways of structuring stories. While our story develops a musician (Hannah Kidd) and Ruth Evans, a textile artist, will both work with the groups to take the story into othe rmedia. In a couple of weeks we'll go back to Wycoller Country Park and tell the story in public for the very first time....

Everything is still open, but we thought you might enjoy some of our first images and ideas....


We scribbled ideas onto sheets and had a washing line of pages that we could move around which was fine as long as it was sunny! Our aim is to write a collective adventure poem, set in  roughly medieval world and using the places we visit, the things we find and our own wild imaginations...

The beginning of the adventure, maybe?

BEGINNING

A cloudy, rainy, stormy day
When only ducks and slugs are out
Dripping rain, dripping children
Soaking through their shoes
But a day hoping for rainbows




Characters we might use

MEN-AT-ARMS
Knucklehead knights,
Strong and brave with sword and spear and shield
Mighty, magnificent men-at-arms
With mace and mail and morning star
Monkeys or mammoths on their shields.
Quiet as moths and mice and mean as midges
They serve the King and Queen of the Woods
And are not very bright



The Wycoller landscape gave us settings...


RUINS
The rugged rocky ruins,
Old, ancient and rough
Thin windows, huge fireplace
that will hold
A whole company warm
Or roasting





TREES
Tall trees grow in those woods
Towering, toppling, tumbling trees
A tangle of leaves and branches and bark
Old, old trees and new saplings,
A world of green and brown

There are children in the trees
They hid in the leaves
Under the leaves
For so long, for too long
And they became green and 
As secret and silent as the trees themselves


Partners in the adventure:


with funding from the Clore Duffield Foundation

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