I Love West Leeds Arts Festival | Young Writers | Zodwa Nyoni
Zodwa Nyoni, a 21 year old Zimbabwean-born writer. She writes through narrative poetry. Her work has been published in Sable Lit Mag, The Warehouse (Canada) and Aesthetica Creative Works Annual 2009. She is a member of Young Inscribe (Peepal Tree) and Meta-Phonetics (Leeds Young Authors. She is currently reading Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. She is looking forward to bringing to life narratives discovered from Armley Mills, as one of the I Love West Leeds Writers in Residence.
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By Zodwa Nyoni.
Inspired by the image of the old woman in a church, part of Casey Orr's Comings and Goings Exhibition, The Millspace, Armley Mills, Canal Road, Armley, Leeds.
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It was very interesting to meet the other writers on Sunday. When it comes to creating work I am crazy about researching and discovering information that I can build upon.It was nice to see how the other writers are going about their ways to create work for this residency.
I want to create narratives of people who have lived. My first visit to Armley mills, I spent the day there Mills looking into the history that was there, reading and discovering. Whilst I was there I saw a picture of a theatre called the Tivoli, previously called the Princess Theatre. I looked into the history of the theatre, who ran it, and they shows that took place there. Alongside that, away from the mills I found a picture of a sixteen year old black boy, Edward Walton who used to sell flowers on Kirkgate. It was painted by a Yorkshire artist John Sowden in June 1888. I wondered how interesting it would be if this boy visited the theatre. My first initial response to these pieces of research was the poem below.
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Untitled
In his weaved wicker basket he sells newly sprung June.
Tiny burnt orange terracotta flowers,
bright yellow sunrises, pure white pompons,
deep blue magnificent spires, shrub rose blooms
and rich purple flowers borne fleetingly in early summer.
He stands with his garden on Kirkgate, young Peruvian Edward
still as poised as Sowden painted him.
Expectant for the afternoon at Princess Theatre
he peddles flower after flower
filling pockets with shillings
He recalls stories of Madams with lions and tigers,
tomfoolery from Victoria Bridge to Leeds Bridge
a washing tub pulled by four geese.
He laughs, at the theatre he will see.
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As beautiful as the concept of this boy visiting the theatre is, after meeting all the other writers and listening to their concepts I could do more to bring forth stories from West Leeds. . Being someone who doesn't live in West Leeds there is a lot of fantastic information which I can use to create clearer narratives. My next stage is to connect Edward Walton to boys his age and younger that worked at Armley Mills that weren't surrounded by the beautifulness of flowers but instead exploitation and abuse.
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Yesterday we had our second workshop, and it was nice to hear the new work that had been written. This week we tried some radio interviewing techniques. We interviewed each other as well as Rommi and through that exercise I was asked about whether residencies were helpful. And having done a residency once before, at BBC Radio Leeds [in 2007-8] my response to the question was of course, yes!
This residency has been more structured than my first one. I feel the responsibility to create work for an end goal. The weeks build on from each other and because it's based on a geographical area, I have learnt how to discover pockets of creativity that I wouldn't have looked for before. The way that I am writing is also different because I am growing and telling different narratives.
Last session, I wanted to connect the poem that I had written closer to West Leeds. Through researching the lives of the children that worked at the mills, I discovered this abundant supply of interviews of boys and girls from the early to mid-19th century. These interviews were horrific accounts of their daily lives and some were of how they ended up working at the mills. In trying to connect my previous poem to one of these children (i.e. a friend, someone he passes by on his way home) I want to develop other poems. These children need to be spoken of.
Rommi had introduced us to 'newspaper poetry' [creating poems from found newspaper text by blocking out words not wanted, therefore leaving words which form a poem] in the first session. The I Love West Leeds Festival Writers in Residence are part of We Love Technology's Mobile Text Exhibition at Museums across Leeds. The idea is that when walking around any one of a number of museums [including Armley Mills] you'll be able to text a given number when looking at a particular exhibit and you'll receive a poem that could be my poem, and that poem will be a guide in helping you see, or think about the object in a different way.
Yesterday we explored Hemmingway's concept of the Six Word Novels, text poetry and William Carlos Williams' idea of apologising in a poem, except with our challenge we wrote imagining the voice coming from an object. I applied these techniques in creating the following pieces. For the newspaper poem I used found text - the interviews of the children.
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Newspaper poem
Where There Is Muck There Is Brass
Father was nomadic in the midst of the cumulous clouds
By the time I was two.
Sarah and I laid, backs heavy, on the blades of grass
to watch him pass over us.
Mother took ill, we became the children
Of the workhouse on Lady Lane.
When she was finally committed to the earth
we were leavened with pain of living
with no-one to belong to; no love to love us.
Cart -loaded to Wortley's workhouse
We were 'muck but our hands were brass', we were told.
With the morning's sky painfully dark ,
Sleep wanting us to remain, they sent us to mill doors
Where I'd now see the frame that was once Sarah.
Her absence in the girl's chamber begot her as a stranger to me.
She was a piecer, kept in the warm mill air thick with cotton dust
I lived in the shadows of the spinning mule,
The perennial beggar of surplus oil and dirt,
At the mercy of Tom the Devil's hand.........
An apology: from the machine to the child
I was seeking affection,
the aesthetics of your touch.
I'm sorry.
From the stick to the child
Your prettiness was effortless like
Dandelions gliding in the summer's breeze.
I didn't want to disturb you. He made me.
Text Poetry *
Its emptiness isn't silent.
*Inspired by an old wooden stool.
Six Word Novel
Woke to darkness. Slept in darkness
Six Word Novel
Sigh. I've forgotten how to smile.
*inspired by the photographs below
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St Bartholomew's Church Organ
On a consecrated hilltop,
Daylight breaks through stained glass windows.
Kaleidoscopic patterns beam with rapture on
St Bartholomew's servant of god. It sings,
Softly, with birds sitting on branches of fruitful oaks,
Harmony crossing over the lofty nave;
Seemingly endless beauty.
An angelic congregation of worshippers
Lift from the pews to praise hallelujah -
With Armley Schulze.
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Where There Is Muck There Is Brass
Father was nomadic in the midst of the cumulous clouds.
By the time I was two. My sister and I laid,
backs heavy, on the blades of grass to watch him
pass over us. Mother took ill. We became Sarah and David
the children of the workhouse on Lady Lane.
When she was finally committed to the earth
we were leavened with pain of living:
with no-one to belong to, no love to love us.
Cart-loaded to Wortley's Workhouse
We were 'muck but our hands were brass', we were told.
With the morning's sky painfully dark,
Sleep wanted us to remain.
The cold, dewed, limbs of shrubbery and moss aligning
The path to the mill grabbed hold; pulled us closer its doors.
There, I'd see the failing frame that was once Sarah.
Her absence in the girl's chamber begot her as a stranger to me.
By noon she was a corpse, her last breath thick with cotton dust.
She left me mourning in the shadows of the spinning mule
I was the perennial beggar of comfort, scrapping stubborn oil and dirt
At the mercy of Tom the Devil's hand.
He was ruthless, a master of dreadful punishment.
He'd shave the pride of the big girls for talking,
Flog over his knee, kick where he should not -
in sight of both men and boys.
Mary Newton's bed-fellow found her body
after life had escaped it.
Before I'd met the Devil, I was rosy and brawny,
By eight years of age, a wan-ness came over me.
My joints were rusty hinges.
My body, black and blue moulds of the knob-sticks and straps
Each lash for a time fatigue visited;
Hunger growled and sadness cried.
These childhood days spun like waterwheels:
Back-to-back years watching the sun wake and sleep.
The laboured beads of sweat and tears became baptismal showers,
rites of passage to my father's home,
Where I now look upon the ruins of the children's playground.
In the flesh we are gone, but our astral bodies
Linger in the howling silence;
In cracks of the old bricks;
The old fixtures and creaks;
The spun yarn, and in the
Dust tucked in its favourite hiding places.
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Final Blog
The Word Cafe has come and gone. It is always nice when things work out like you'd hoped. We had a great turn out of people who came to experience all the work we had put in for the show.
Since I was doing a lot of character-based work and my performances were fixed in certain areas of the mill, I didn't get a chance to the other writers showcase their work to the audience. However, I had the privilege to work with them over the weeks and I got to see and hear their work develop. Undoubtedly they are all talented, and I'm sure the audience got to experience what I saw in all of them during our time together, sheer brilliance and an interesting way of seeing their surroundings.
As for my performances what I was keen to do was bring about the atmosphere of every narrative to life so that they audience could understand the lives of the children I was speaking of. The moment I felt that I had achieved this was after my third performance when an audience member said; 'it's very atmospheric, you can feel them (characters)'. At that moment I knew I had achieved what I wanted.
This residency has taught me that residencies don't need to be ongoing for a long period of time. It is about how much work you put in within the time that you are given. In retrospect, within the month of July I began researching West Leeds from a position where I did not know much at all. I discovered hidden stories, began to craft them, personify them, and present them. This was all done with a consistency of hard work and being driven to meet the final goal. Also , it was all done with the help of the staff at Armley Mills who answered my many questions, took me on tours and let me rummage through their costume ,telling me what I needed and what would work; and helped me rehearse in-between performances during the Word Cafe.
Through this experience I have learnt that I can accomplish a lot more as an artist by utilizing all the skills that I have obtained. Rommi Smith and Jane Earnshaw saw that in me and they gave me this opportunity to discover that and push my own capabilities and I thank them for that. What's next? I keep going, searching for more and growing. Having been through a residency that was successful , I now know what is expected of an artist with in a residency and it is up to me to find future projects that better me as a writer and a performer.