Unique residential course covering raku firing; haiku; short love poems (tanka); haibun and renga

WRITING POETRY the haiku way.
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2010 Booking confirmed at Monday - Friday 12th-16th April 2010
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UPDATE:
A raku firing event is included in the writing course as a fantastic souvenir of the course!

Get a sense of the whole experience!
YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G_gB9_-TZU&feature=related

After the renga group poem you will details about the course and where and how you can book.


Quotes from my incredible students!

"Just to say that I have heard from the magazine you suggested and they have accepted my story and will publish and want more. Thank you."
(National magazine)

“You are a great teacher, and I know what I'm saying. Thank you for everything you gave us.”

“…still on a high…you helped me move past a real boulder I had been lugging around…I am very grateful and enjoying my writing much more.”


REBOOKED!
To see what the course is about please scroll further down but enjoy the final event we did last Spring.

Claridge House is an amazing venue and receives FULL With Words stars rating.

The food is incredible, and they cater for every kind of diet.

Getting to Claridge House is very easy. We had workshoppers from York and Cardiff as well as the South East. Lingfield Station is about 30 minutes from Victoria Station, and Claridge House is 3 minutes from the local station.

We all had a proper breakfast on the last day with absolutely no rushing for the train.

I have never been to a venue that did so much for its guests, and I can't recommend the place highly enough if you are a writer or want to enrol on a course just to have a quality few days away.

The atmosphere is the most relaxing I've ever been in, and none of us had to worry for a second where our next meal or coffee etc... was coming from.

Incredible value all round, incredible place.


This is our group renga that we did to finish the course.

I wish you could have all been there, it was so inspiring, and such a lot of fun we couldn't stop laughing at times!

The renga was composed Thursday evening (March 12th 2008) and With Words donated 10% from its residential fee to Comic Relief (Red Nose Day 2009), as they give amazing support to literacy in the U.K. and Africa, on April Fool's Day!

CLARIDGE HOUSE (Comic Relief) RENGA

Title: "JUST SHORT OF A DOUBLE SHISAN"

cold start
a robin puffs its chest up
for the first note

war cry
a rival at hand

friendly gardener
greets his friend
has a chat

but the robin sees a worm
and forgets the song

the worm forgets
the song
and knows oblivion

the female strikes a pose
on another branch

no Wenceslas
with his page
treads the snow

melting into drops
and runs away

drops of blood
lead a trail
to a hidden cavern

a wounded mouse
lies within

pussy willow
buds unfurl
furry warmth

the bear slowly awoke
as the child

the trampoline
on the lawn
next to the paddling pool

ice cream cone
fallen to the ground

in the moonlight
the fox sniffed
and moved on

to the grapes
in the greenhouse

a field of wheat
lay just beyond
spelt of course

two bikes
lying in the chaff

a dirty glass
punctures the tyre
and the crop circle

four footsteps
lead off

the vapour trail
disappears
out of the milky way

a chocolate wrapper
is all that’s left

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WRITING POETRY the haiku way
with Alan Summers

Claridge House March 9th -13th 2009

Enter the world of Japanese poetry; immerse yourself into the ‘quietnesses’ of haiku while weaving the haiku technique into your writing.

Haiku is a relaxing way of noting the ordinary moments in our lives, and with a complimentary Haiku Journal, you can become part of the Haiku way.

Enjoy the beautiful surroundings, and as haiku are often written with a seasonal reference, and contain natural images, be inspired by the nature right outside Claridge House.

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outdoor images©http://www.jopelly.eclipse.co.uk/

• The Haiku Game: great entertainment and ice-breaker and a relaxed way to start to understand all about haiku
• Haiku: its history, techniques, how to keep a haiku journal (with complimentary Haiku Journal): how to read or perform haiku (and haibun); and how to get published.
• Ginko: a writing walk, weather permitting, with complimentary Haiku Journal

The course also includes an insight into other 'forms' associated with haiku:

• Tanka: the short love poem
  
• Haibun (prose with haiku): great for journals or diary entries, and with travel writing
• Renga: Our last full day will have a 12 verse renga, just for fun!

There will be plenty of opportunity to have one-one and/or group feedback on haiku and other forms that you wish to either get to publishable quality, or wish to develop further in your writing as a novelist; travel writer (and other non-fiction); a journal/diarist; or poet.


image©Claridge House

Alan Summers is a Japan Times award-winning poet for haiku and renga, a former General Secretary of the British Haiku Society, with fifteen years’ experience, and founder of With Words.

The course will run at Claridge House, a Victorian building with full disabled access set in beautiful gardens in the Surrey countryside.

It runs from 4 pm Monday to Friday after breakfast. The cost of £290 includes the cost of accommodation and meals (which are vegetarian based on organic produce) as well the Course itself, and complimentary haiku notebooks.

Claridge House
tel. no. 01342 832150 or 0845 345 7281

Website: www.claridgehouse.quaker.eu.org
email: welcome@claridgehouse.quaker.eu.org

Claridge House, Dormans Road, Dormansland Lingfield, Surrey, RH7 6QH
Reg. Charity no 228102.