Macmillan Writing Day

Three years ago former Bath Spa MA student Rachel Knightley asked if I'd join a group of writers in being sponsored to write for a day, with the money going to Macmillan Cancer Support. I've done it every year, but this year I thought I'd take the cause out to the public and asked Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights if I could spend part of the day writing at their lovely shop. I'll be there from 1-4 p.m. today and would love to have some visitors. Not that I don't want to write--I always want to write--but I like this idea, of donating one's skills in some way to charity, and would like to see it become more popular. I also want to do what I can for Macmillan Cancer Support. I've lost two former poetry students to cancer in the last few years, first Linda Lamus, then Ellie Evans, and I'm grateful for Macmillan's good work.

Donations can be made here up to a month from today, I believe. Any amount, however small, is most welcome.

A prose poem from Ellie Evans' The Ivy Hides the Fig-Ripe Duchess

Line Ending

He was always plagued by line-endings. This was why he didn't lift his pencil off the paper, but kept on and on, writing more and more slowly. And his writing got smaller. When words stopped forming, he let the line go and it drew him after it, as it drew petals, the scroll of an ear, a foetus like a conch-shell. At the same time, the line annotated all these in tiny script, written backwards to bewilder him. Still he was running as the line left the page and spiralled over walls to doodle staircases, camels, a banyan tree...then off down corridors, ambulatories, even cannons and aeroplanes. But all he had ever wanted to do was make a lion: it walked towards the king as if to attack, then opened its mouth. And it was filled with lilies.

Ellie Evans

The Ivy Hides the Fig-Ripe Duchess

Seren Books, 2011

You can purchase The Ivy Hides the Fig-Ripe Duchess from The Book Depository with free worldwide shipping. At the moment of writing, it's 26% off!