I attended a zoom discussion led by Suzannah Evans. I chose to attend this zoom because of the increasing amount of writing that is required in the photography course and my awareness that I have not done any formal learning on writing since school (a long time ago). She started by making some general comments about writing such as thinking about what we write, and, more importantly, why we write. This zoom focused on writing about place. She gave us three exercises:

1. Writing about a place you have been to regularly during lockdown. I chose to write about the walk out the end of my street, the same one I made images of for exercise 5.3 about a local journey. I will add this as an appendix to that exercise.
2. Thinking about some unusual place names and writing about those. I picked Arakan, which was both the name of the house I lived in as a child and also where my father served in WWII
3. A short piece that is very place specific. I wrote about the harbour where I lived as a child.

We also discussed poetry and how it differed from general writing, a more considered use of words leading to the production of a feeling. Also discussed avoiding the need to impress, to be pretentious and look clever rather than just using the words that are required.

I found the zoom helpful. It has made me think more about how I say things, and why I say them.

My final piece was:

Pagham harbour

No boats, no water

Sand, mud,

Reeds and grass

Lapwings calling, peewit, peewit.