Lillie-Ann in Lockdown
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Lillie-Ann in Lockdown By Zoe Tillotson, CENMAC English Advisory Teacher
What better job could any book lover and writer have than to be asked to support a budding author develop her own writing? During lockdown, Lillie-Ann and I have taken a break from her novel (now 15 chapters long) to recharge our creative batteries. Over the last few weeks, during this very strange time, we meet every week on Skype to write poems and play a variety of writing games to keep her creative juices flowing.
© Marc Chagall’s Promenade
Lillie-Ann describes herself as ‘weird’ and told me she loves art as well as writing. It seemed a good idea then to combine ‘weird’ and ‘art’, so over the last few weeks I have been sending Lillie-Ann images of paintings by famous artists, known for their odd and distinctive take on the world and we have been using some as a stimulus for writing. So far, we have looked at work by Marc Chagall, Salvador Dali and René Magritte. While she didn’t quite know what to make of Dali strange surrealist images, Lillie-Ann was particularly taken with the painting Promenade by Chagall and wrote the following poem in response:
Menacing scythe swinging
Angelic woman milking
Ghostly cow standing
Colourful shops bustling
Shadowy train trundling
Quaint houses leaning
Bored goat bleating
Velveteen cap perching
Unheimlich pram rolling
On another occasion, I taught her about Haiku: the concise Japanese three-line poem of 5, 7 and 5 syllables. To my amazement, Lillie-Ann came up with her own haiku in less than 10 minutes. It fits the form perfectly and is, of course, about Harry Potter, Lillie-Ann’s all-time favourite!
Hogwart’s Express
Hedwig flaps her wings
The train speeds towards Hogwart’s
A new year has begun.
Lillie-Ann would be delighted to receive your constructive criticism, as any good writer would, so please let her know your thoughts and/or suggestions. Keep an eye out for future posts [here] as we will share more of Lillie-Ann’s lockdown writing in the very near future.
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