Lismore Immrama Festival of Travel Writing - Creative Writing with Robyn Rowland

Beautiful landscape, an inspiring facilitator, a wonderful building. Everything was in place for this being an excellent morning of writing.

Lismore Immrama Festival of Travel Writing is a festival, which has been held annually, in the beautiful and historical town of Lismore in County Waterford, Ireland, since 2003.

Last Saturday, I was really pleased to be attending a creative writing workshop, led by Robyn Rowland - an Australian Irish poet.

The session itself was enormously enjoyable. Robyn introduced herself and then spent time getting to know each one of us, as individuals, before speaking about her fascinating interest in archaeology and writing as archaeology of our own life experiences. It was genuinely fascinating and a concept I had not previously thought about. 

We looked at images of artefacts, buildings and bodies from Pompeii, The Irish Bogs, Troy and various other sites from ancient Greece and Turkey and many other places. After that, Robyn led us on a guided meditation, and then we were free to write anything which we felt compelled to write. 

My own inspiration came from the bodies and it occurred to me that our own bodies can be archaeologically explored to tell the story of our lives, through the scars and lines and other features that are added to our bodies as we age and experience life,  illness and injury.

At the time, my sister was going through her recovery from a hysterectomy. She has been unlucky with her health, has been through multiple surgeries and suffers from a range of incurable, invisible illnesses, which impinge on her daily life constantly. You can read more about her journey and her use of art to tell her story and reach and support other sufferers of invisible illnesses on her blog: blog.endowarrior.co.uk

Prior to her hysterectomy, my sister experimented with the concept of Kintsugi - an ancient Japanese method for repairing broken ceramics with gold. The idea is that in being broken, the ceramics actually become more beautiful than they were, before.

In one of her endlessly creative attempts to take back control from the effects of her illnesses, she took a jar of gold paint and painted her scars gold, posting the resulting images online, to encourage others to feel more positive about their own journeys through illness.

Images © courtesy of: @endo.adeno_warrior on Instagram

Images © courtesy of: @endo.adeno_warrior on Instagram

 Robyn's workshop and my sister's bravery led me to write this poem about how I see her - a courageous young woman who refuses to give up, no matter what is thrown at her.

Kintsugi

by Annie Bell

Kintsugi: a Japanese method for repairing broken ceramics with a special lacquer mixed with gold, silver, or platinum. The philosophy behind this ancient art is the idea that nothing is ever truly broken.

A small, plastic pot, A paintbrush in hand.

Her broken body, No-one understands.

A dig site, soon to be excavated:

Awaiting, her womb to be evacuated.

She looks at her landscape - her peaks and her troughs.

She curses the way it just hurts when she coughs

or walks

or laughs

or cleans

or sits

or rests

or sleeps

or dreams.

She hardly even goes out any more. 

When she does, it all just gets too bloody sore. 

So she looks at her landscape and scans the white lines

That mark the passing of treatments gone by.

The patterns of stretched skin, from forming her kin:

Two children: two miracles, created within.

She's broken, for sure, but not done by a mile.

She fights back. She's brave, so she musters a smile.

She lifts up her brush and she fills in each scar

With gold paint to show that she's come so far:

A beautiful, human Kintsugi jar. 

Images © courtesy of: @endo.adeno_warrior on Instagram

After we had written our pieces, we were all given the opportunity to read out our work and Robyn provided us with very useful feedback. I really enjoyed her workshop. It was fascinating, educational and very, very inspiring. If you have the chance to attend Lismore Immrama or one of Robyn's workshops, I would thoroughly recommend both.

You can follow my sister on Facebook or on Instagram: @endo.adeno_warrior

© Annie Bell 2019