Honestly this is kind of a lazy post but once more I am asking you to love your local writers/writing groups/literary community. They aren’t paying me to say this, but seek out https://www.prospectpark.co.nz/otepoti-writers-lab.
A straight-up copy/paste:
ŌWL Thursday 11 November 2021 7pm with Eliana Gray [theme HUMIDITY]
Opening comment prompts:
Nicest thing that happened today
What do we want out of session
PROMPT 1: 5 mins Tell us why the air feels heavy and what you’re going to do about it. Include two references to birds/bird behaviour, and something blue.
Flat hair unmoving
there is a breeze
but heavy with damp
gravity
Feathers defy weight
each wing a palm frond
push this pulling down
away
I enter the mind of a bird
flying in blue heaven
hair now wings
above humidity we cool
our body.
[I am so restless in my seat and want to keep on writing and also drink wine and not stop for any chatting even though everyone is very lovely]
Prompt 2: 10mins Everything is sticky and it is affecting you emotionally – tell us why and how. Use the words distance, uhhhgh, and troublesome.
My breast rests against the roll of skin below it
I lift the soft mass slightly to let air in
Everything is sticky today
Let evaporation take over for ease of existence
Uhhhgh summer you beast
The mind’s eye transforms me into a lump of wet clay
Sinking into itself with no shape
Just as my secondary sex characteristics
Drag me into a pit of self-loathing
Troublesome thoughts thrive
Suckling the honey of misperception
My breast rests against the roll of skin below it
Sweat should be slick but I stick to myself
Thigh to thigh
Triceps to lats
Fat to fat
I must distance myself from these thoughts
Prompt 3: 20 mins a group of four people are walking to a beach in a heatwave, when they arrive there is only one of them left. Describe the quality of a body of water in detail, use the words help, cancerous, and transient.
A heatwave is a dangerous time
Dark emotions spread as a cancer
Four pursue succour in the ocean
Her voice alone can soothe
But her body is divine
Moving to her own rhythm
And this night I light her lace edges
White and frothy skirts touching the shore
Where four seek transient relief
My face serene above
While dune shadows hide
Four becomes three after teeth show themselves
Crushed throats are noiseless
Three becomes two after a diversion
Traps act quick if you dare stray
Two becomes one after a changed mind
Night sounds tug at hidden fears
But this one looks to me as it arrives
Waves lap at feet, pull in knees, swallow
One person up to their neck
And I light her lace edges
As this one sinks happily
The ocean embraces her victims with cool
Pleasure to have been a help
A heatwave is a dangerous time
Dark emotions cancerous
Prompt 4: 10 mins NZ housing horror story – tell us about the worst flat/house you’ve ever been in. There is food languishing on the counter that you must describe. Option: tell us the story in 3rd person.
[here, Mark hands me the dinner he has prepared; microwaved potato with cheese, carrots and beans, beef mince patties]
Hyde St before I knew what that meant
Three young men show me in
It seems fine
I am poor after all
And then I see the bathroom
The toilet bowl is not intact
The uni library serves them well
Do they even speak to the landlord?
I’m out.
This house wins the hunt
Our budget little more than sacks of potatoes
We tire of them so they grow
Maybe that’s what drew the hen
Hopping in the kitchen window with the pollen
Potato-eyes reaching out to nourish
But we were soaked in cheap vodka
Choosing budget ice cream and late tv movies
As thistles invade the laundry
Tunnelwebs clog the bathtub drain
Tiny wētā under our beds
Our next home is a palace in comparison
Until Carolyn drinks alone
I return home to find her piss in my room
And the neighbour throws a pumpkin from the third floor
As the others burn their own sofa by my front door
The broken toilet wasn’t that bad, really
And I could have planted those potatoes.
[everyone reads their little stories about the most disgusting homes and kitchens and halls of residence, and I sit here happily devouring my dinner]