06 Nov 2013 / The Hurst
A selection of photographs and found poems from Deb Alma, our writer-in-residence at The Hurst.
Points of interest
We want you to treat the Hurst as your home
monkey puzzle, apple orchard, honeysuckle
your room as your writing room
Clockhouse, carpark, sequoia trees
decorate with flowers books and woodland objects
Duck Island, bluebell walk, azalea walk
screwed up bits of paper
wisteria arbour, best view in England
tossed from your desk.
– words taken from The Hurst Welcome Pack
The Hurst Crop
We picked all the apples yesterday morning;
if the fruit hits the ground
it has no time to bruise;
stooping and placing, trays and baskets
loads more than we had feared
to press the apple flesh
pulp into the bucket
scooped into layers of cloth and frames of the press
the fruit of the tree of literacy
bucket by bucket
the Curl Tails crunched up
– words taken from The Hurst newsletter, 2007, Keith Pybus
‘The fire in the flint shows not till it be struck’
In the early days it had been pens and notebooks
and a queue for one of the two typewriters,
there was always a queue for the loo
but back then no-one complained.
And now the paperwork, the application questionnaires,
the evaluation forms, the parent groups,
insurance companies, fire officers,
health and safety inspectors .
But the sound, like laughter;
it has been the lightness that has tempered Arvon,
kept it radical, deep-rooted,
light-heartedness is its strength,
light-heartedness is a serious business.
We had been called on to write as if writing mattered.
– words taken from The Founding of Arvon by John Moat
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