Janine Pinion

ThoughtBox at Art Action Stations Sat 6th June

Next Saturday (6th June) is The Lord Mayor’s Pageant….a spectacular day of celebrations in Liverpool City Centre http://www.visitliverpool.com/site/whats-on/lord-mayors-pageant-p174651

Urban Canvas have teamed up with Liverpool City Council’s BID partnership and The Met Quarter to present ART ACTION STATIONS for a day jam packed with art activities for the whole family and delivered by some of Liverpool’s leading environmental artists. The fun kicks off after the pageant at 1.30pm in Williamson Square and outside the Met Quarter. Free street art with an environmental message….try your hand at making a dress from newspapers, what about hats from Hoover bags! Enter the young person’s street art competition or try your hand at a game of ‘street poetry’ organised by the Windows Project….

….and I’ll be there too - join me at ThoughtBox: moods, memories & motifs using art materials and recycled treasures in take-away boxes for you to make and take away!

Masterclass Fri 24th April

I feel very honoured to be the first guest speaker at a series of Community Masterclasses hosted by North End Writers, Liverpool, on Friday 24th April at Newsham Park Lodge, Gardners Drive, Liverpool L6 7UR (just off Sheil Road).

The event is in the conference room – 6.30pm for tea & coffee, talk is 7pm - 8.30pm with time for Q & A and discussion.

I’ll be talking about my life in poetry, art and personal development - from early beginnings to how I made a living, and how I changed my approach so that it all became easier and inspiring after a tough start following old myths.  I’ll tell you about my 15-min rule and why Ted has travelled with me for nearly 50 years. Hope you can make it.

Many thanks to Pauline Rowe for organising this event.  For further details on North End Writers and their future programme of Community Masterclasses, visit the website at http://www.northendwriters.co.uk

Poems

Two poems commended in the First Thursday Poetry Competition 2008.  The theme was ‘Over The Water’.  Poetry nights every first Thursday at Linghams Bookshop, Heswall, Wirral.

Journeys

Some days
are like journeys, thoughts
drift as rain
thickens the window, settle
on forgotten things – the model boat stranded
in dust; the souvenir soap
hidden
in a folded letter –

a buttery pearl
fresh from the mould, the factory
seam intact, crescent moon imprint
smooth as a mirror.
White bruises crackle a corner
scratched from the ride home,
and the perfume’s gone but it stinks
of memory.  Coarse

and delicate this coracle
crafted from mathematics, wood and tar. 
Light as a lily
it carries me everywhere – oceans, rivers
gulleys, veins.  You will think
it tough as a half-timbered house, and it is
if you let it bend
with the tide

where I wash
myself of my favoured
bitterness, leaving me filthy. 
And there’s no escaping
the one oar.  Where
to plunge the whitened blade
and how to draw?  Or whether
to pick it up at all.


Home

is dust from the joiner’s saw,
is the smell of fungicide
and a broken tile.
Is forming
in the stack of stone blocks
and the red sack of yellow sand
outside.
Is small
as a matchbox, and lost
between the third and fourth rib,
a tin of paint
and hope. 
Is in the fear of theft
or gardens gone to seed.
Is in pictures
cut from a magazine. 
Is remembered
across the river
at a different address.