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CREATIVE WRITING POETRY
I also run poetry and creative writing workshops, classes and courses. Details and dates of these are in the 'events' section of this site. I am a committee member of 'Moor Poets' which is a community based, poetry training and development network.
I am committed to promoting the profile of poetry and poets in society: - to encourage the potential of poetry, which affirms personal and cultural identity and expression - to enable personal and community development - to enrich mainstream education and influence other establishments - for my enjoyment. Occasionally, I organise independent poetry events with other poets, and participate in collaborative projects. These include several projects with published poet Mim Darlington, as literary duo 'The Honey Tongues', and with performance poet Dennis Just Dennis, with our show based on the 'Poets Political Party'.
Me & Dennis on the billboard with poetry heroes! Electric Picnic, Ireland, 2008
In Devon where I am based, there are many communities of poets and collaborative projects which thrive, as does a strong ethos of mutual support, friendship, and vive la difference. I produce booklets, CDs or cards in support of exhibitions and performances.
poetry exhibit at Mythic Garden Sculpture Exhibition, 2007 "As good as Kipling!" Alan Titchmarsh, competition judge, Chelsea Flower Show poetry competition 2005 "A wonderfully accessible, life-affirming poet with great range, bold imagery, warmth and wit. I'd recommend anyone to listen to Lucy Lepchani' Matt Harvey, poet and broadcaster. SHORT STORIES I am currently working (slowly!) towards completing an anthology of short stories and a first novel.
Some examples of published and unpublished creative work (all works, in part or in full, are copyright and may not be reproduced in any
medium, without permission from the author) Extract from ‘The Monarch’ One by one I named all of the butterflies in the pictures, some of which I had learned to identify only the evening before, from the same book; and some of which were almost as familiar as my own family. Dad’s eyes twinkled with delight; he loved it when I got things right.
“Well done, lad. Well done. Do you know, when I was a boy in “Mmm, lovely,” said my mother, more interested in the pages of her Mills and Boon novel “perhaps he should have some pocket-money to go to the shops.” She was near the end of her book, and we recognized the expression, the posture, the small flicker of her steely grey eyes as they beamed into the pages. It meant: “Do not disturb me. Interrupt at your peril.” “Half-a-crown,” said Dad, “and yes, you can spend it all on sweets if you like. Just don’t worry about your teeth all falling out, at least you know all your butterflies.” Dad, proud and awkward, gave me the coin he fished from his pocket. “Can you get some shopping too, Michael?” said Mum, in a distant, faraway tone. “Give him a fiver, Viknesh, there’s a list in the kitchen.” “A fiver? How much shopping you bloody want him to get?” and Dad walked out of the room. I stood before Mum, uncomfortably turning over the half-a-crown in my hand. She looked up at me briefly and smiled, then turned back to her book. “Will my football kit be ready for Monday, Mum? I put it in the wash yesterday eve…” She interrupted with a loud sigh, and without looking up, said: “Yes, yes.” And she was back in the arms of her fantasy hero once again. “There’s a whole weekend’s shop here. He can’t bloody carry all this by…” “Yes he can.” “We’ll drive to the supermarket. Doesn’t look much like we’re doing anything else this bloody weekend, does it?” Mum didn’t answer, or even look up at Dad. She turned a page gracefully. “Get your jacket, Michael. You have to help me. Come on, let’s go.” Dad took his jacket from the peg in the hall and turned to leave the house. He was angry, but he was letting it simmer down rather than boil up. Mum, she was like ice. I knew she was angry but I didn’t know why, and the fact that she held it inside her, poised and brittle, scared me.
published in the short story anthology 'Shoe Fly Baby' (
A Poet’s
Manifesto Poetry should not live in books on
shelves, all covered in dust. From now on, it should be written on the
stripes of zebras that run on the Savannah announced in vapour trails of aeroplanes, engraved on the glass of morning
milk-bottles, alongside bite-sized mini-quotes on cereal
boxes, and printed, in rhyming couplets, onto all
utility bills. Limericks should be placed on big blue
signs up and down the motorways, sonnets onto street-maps, and kennings
strung aloft miles of festival bunting, haiku iced over cakes in the bakers shop
window, and all the morning papers should filled
with the works of Benjamin Zephaniah and William Blake. But let it not be, that just published
poets should hold this worthy court: let every scribbler and scrawler, every
closet wordsmith, be illuminated by this craft! Or let our words appear in thought bubbles floating importantly overhead, while children call revolting rhymes and rude recitations around the playground
daily. There should be reams of rhymes of
graffiti in our cities, and police should learn to rap to rhythms
of flat-foot plod as all good citizens uphold the law according to Pablo Neruda, Aphra Behn and
e.e. cummings. in the NHS, nurses shall croon soothingly
to their patients about
" ...hosts of golden daffodils", or,
"...rage, rage against the dying of the light” while doctors prescribe twice daily verses
of Rumi, or Marge Piercy, or John Cooper Clark while military forces are issued with arms
to hug and will shout out from megaphones,
microphones, minarets, the best works of our peace poets while all weapons are melted down and made into statues of Wilfred Owen,
Emily Dickinson, Rupert Brooke and Ken Saro-Wiwa. This good earth will be safe and free,
beneath the grace of poetry! You think these politics absurd? This will make our country great; or I’ll eat my words. from 'The Wisdom of Bees' CD and included in Poets Political Party performances with poet Dennis Just Dennis
Conversation The zig-zag of
their consonants I tell this to Ania
How does English
sound Her reply is
immediate “Like circles,” she
says We spend the
afternoon From 'Immigrants, Migrants, Native Species' exhibit, Mythic Garden, Dartmoor Blacksmith
Illuminating the mettle of self His hammer-head, chipped from Thor’s own and from it summons and with tempering, tempering, tempering:
Exhibited as part of the collection ‘A Spotters Guide
to Sculptors and Sculpture’ in sculpted wooden book (made by Sean Hellman – see
www.seanhellman.com) at The Ballad of
Chelsea Flower Show
There were juggernauts of jasmine The crowds all gasp, and wonder; they say ‘wow!’ cry ‘oooh’s and ‘aaah’s and they’ll dream of floribunda when they leave in trains and cars. Time passes; flowers wither; leaves will fall and petals fade: but Won first prize, Chelsea Flower Show Poetry Competition 2005 September
Sonnet September spans
her languid days From 'Seeing the Wood Through the Trees' exhibition, High Moorland Visitor Centre, Dartmoor Billy’s Car Volcano hot
and red as lobster Billy’s pride
and race-track joy If Son-of-God
was six feet tall but CO2 fumes
take their toll And how his
sweetheart frets and fusses! Billy can’t
give up the races Unpublished, performance poem My Grandmother in My Grandmother in
as history within me, stirs, They echo like an ancient song; No breadth of land that spans this earth The past is not lost, it is just mislaid to cleanse the wounds that lies arranged Available on 'The Wisdom of Bees' CD
Haiku: ‘Money is status’ All works, in part or in full, are copyright and may not be reproduced in any medium, without permission from the author, unless for use within educational establishments.
to browse or listen to more poetry by Lucy Lepchani: http://www.myspace.com/lucylepchanipoems |
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