April Segment - A Nest in the Goat's Beard and other Strange Things

This month's museum objects were 3 pictures:     “A Nest in the Goat’s Beard” – Carmen Gracia. “The Igloo” – Michael Oelman and “Two Flowers and a Leaf” – John Wolseley.

 As it happened to be the 200th Birthday of Edward Lear the obvious link here was his most famous Limerick:

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, "It is just as I feared! -
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!"

Edward Lear (1812 - 88)

Carmen Gracia's picture is a colourful, lighthearted abstract and helped to put us in the right frame of mind for the production of a few limericks and some very silly "Flash Fiction" based on randomly generated titles

using the "heads, bodies and legs" drawing game but with words instead. 

Then a change of mood with a lovely soft watercolour by Michael Oelman entitled Igloo.  We matched this with a poem of the same name by a poet new to me called Gabriel Gadfly. He has his own website if you want to look him up.  This imaginative love poem begins:

Igloo

Gabriel Gadfly

One day, it might come to pass

that you and I will be sharing

an igloo (perhaps because the

world has frozen solid or someone

left the refrigerator door open).

I suspect we will be sitting

in an igloo and you will sneeze

or I will shift in the small space

and something in our glacial

foundation will crack open

and you and I will drift out to sea

on an icy igloo raft. 

Sonia

The Igloo

I will sing to you my love and my yoik will touch your soul

And you will be part of the wind and the falling snow

In the igloo I have built where you and I will lie.

The stars brightly talk in the sky sending little sparks of light

Through the dark, sad night, that continue into day

I will sing to you my love as we lie on reindeer skins

And in our dreams, ride the sea on mighty fins.

And when we wake  and I look again the yoik will echo

And remain deep, deep in the igloo of our mind

For us to reach for and find again when harsh winds blow.

  

yoik - a joik, (also spelled yoik) is a traditional Sami form of song

We finished with a quick flowery haiku inspired by "Two Flowers and a Leaf" and felt that we'd had a very productive morning. 

It's a little sad to have ended the series but we ended on a note of hilarity thanks to Liz:

Limerick

(inspired by the 200^th birthday of Edward Lear May 12^th 2012)

 Liz Holley

There is a fab tutor, Ms Givertz

Around whom I writing group pivots

With imagination she nurses

Our power to write verses

So good that some give us the shivertz.

As always our thanks go to the wonderful staff at the Museum Resource & Learning Centre in Hereford and to Ledbury Poetry Festival for funding this project.  SG.