Last week saw the second of our teacher CPD evenings – run with support from NAWE (National Association for Writers in Education) the MLA and the British Library.
The events have included talks, object handling and have focused on using creative writing to engage with museum collections.
Our recent writer in residence, Rebecca Smith, came prepared with many creative writing exercises for the teachers to try out as they explored the house. The theme of the night was “Decisions and Destiny in Austen and Hardy” so all the exercises linked the objects to this idea.
Pippa Brindly from Dorset County Museum (who display Hardy’s study and have the majority o his collection) came laden with objects to examine, including a man-trap and a horn lantern. She also had lots of photos of Dorset life in the early 1900s which depicted some great characters very suitable for inspiring stories.
Louise (curator at Jane Austen’s) showed some items from the collection that are not usually on display. The teachers were able to look at and handle these special objects: a white silk shawl that Jane embroidered, lovely miniatures and an amazing Grand Tour sketchbook which contains beautifully detailed drawings and paintings.
The evening received great feedback with people commenting on how evocative it is to wonder around the house in the evening. A few of the teachers sent me some of their writing so I’ve copied it in below.
Cassandra: memory of a sister
We found it there among her things,
a muddle of mourning rings and brooches
of a life where death was never far away.
A fold of yellowing paper which we almost cast out
before by chance we read the faint familiar hand:
“My father’s hair.
A fine white spray scattered from my fingers,
Releasing from this latest death
a shared beginning.
David Cave from Churchers College wrote this after seeing the lock of Mr Austen’s hair in the Austen Family Room.
The three poems below were done by Susan Greenhalgh from Alton College, and here is what she says about them.
The first poem, Whose Feet? Whose Fate? is in response to the idea given by Rebecca about the three Austen women: Mrs Austen's concerns about her future as a relatively penniless widow; Cassandra's preoccupations with her dead fiancé; and, finally, Jane's frustrations at not being able to dedicate her days to writing. Rebecca's idea of 'under the floorboards' has been translated to the floorboards themselves.
The second, very short piece, Scrap, is inspired by the original scrap of wallpaper and is deliberately rather imagist/haiku-esque in style!
Finally, I wrote the poem Looking Back about the mirror in Jane's room in my little book at the last CPD event.
Whose Feet? Whose Fate?No money, no status
Here with my daughters
Awaiting a decision
To comfort my last years
I wait…
My loss is heavy; my heart is sore.
What pain and fear did he suffer
In that far-off land?
I was not there; he does not know
The wide and frightful space
Of my grief.
The house is full of noise;
Domestic chores demand too much of me.
I long to create and spill
The thoughts, active in my mind,
Into words!
The wooden treads
Bear witness.
They yearn and grieve and fuss.
Two hundred years of passing feet
Still share their fate with us.
ScrapTorn, faded relic
Vestige of a simple life
Backdrop to genius
Looking BackNow mottled with time and use
A frame with tilt, and loose
But
Filling the space with sense
Of what and who were once here.
Out of sight, the private place
Where two sisters shared
Their love, their secrets and their pain.
Here another face
Contemplates the open way:
Different lives on full display.
