I can’t believe I haven’t visited since October. Perhaps I’m not a blogging person!
Well I’m here now, and I’ve been writing and editing and doing a thousand other things in my absence.
I visited the Emory Douglas exhibition at Urbis a couple of weeks ago, as part of a Commonword event. It was a real eye opener for me, of course I knew about the Black Panther’s but I didn’t realise the extent of their activities. It’s fascinating and educational and I definitely recommend it for a visit – it’s there until April, I think. Anyhoo, the whole point of the event was for us to be inspired to write a poem about the people behind the movement. I hardly moved from the seat next to the enormous print of Huey P Newton. But it was nothing to do with his physique, honestly, it was just that there was so much going on in the photograph. So I wrote a poem and it’s on the Commonword.org blog. (Yes I know, I’ve been there when I haven’t been here!)
What else have I been writing? Well I wrote a short story called imaginatively ‘a love story’ for the Scribble event in Rochdale yesterday. That was fun, even when two people said they ‘really enjoyed my poem’. I graciously said thank you. It so isn’t a poem. My good buddy Kim Wiltshire came along for support, which was great because she was able to give me some honest feedback about my performance, which is pretty important. In hindsight I should have invited someone who would have simply said I was great, not really. Honesty is one of Kim’s good points and she gave me some really useful feedback. (And said I read well, and I believe her).
I’ll try and come back more often, I forgot how much fun it is!
Muli Amaye 