Our first guest blogger is Stewart Tunnicliff, a Brit and a glocal who loves Leipzig, been here 14 years and (for sure) counting. Stew does a lot of things in this community, often dealing with sharing the power of words and communications – a lead in Leipzig Writers and Trans Lingo; an organizer and avid promoter of literary concerts, open mics, and Noels Ballroom pub quiz teams. He takes pleasure in bringing like-minded people together. And also importantly, Stew writes his own poetry and short stories. He has evolved a lot from his days writing poetry filled with “teenage angst” when he started out at age 17. Below is his contribution, which includes one of his poems:
By Stewart Tunnicliff
Wasnie born under a wanderin star, bur in a one cow village at tha foot of tha Peak District; Inky is where a stayed t tha ripe ole age of 15. As you can read I have been influenced a lot by accented text and performance, with many varied influences from Iain Banks, Irvine Welsh, Jenny Diski, TC Boyle and Jasper Forde. Since my teens art and writing has been fighting over which is to be my passion. At the moment from a productive sense writing is winning, and I am a lapsed artist. I am now more a proof reader than teacher, and write content for my company (trans-lingo), am soon to be President of the NPO (Leipzig Writers) I co-founded, and am co-writing short stories and poetical prose, what I term shorts, with the occasional poem. The co-authorship is mostly influenced by the sentimentalism, realism and optimism of Mark Grist, Hanif Kureshi, films by Mike Leigh and French cinema. It is a new process and an attempt to collaborate at distance, as well as be published in Germany and UK.
My origins for serious writing came from my years at Uni and performance poetry. I am always trailing the net to find new sources from my peers such as Taylor Mali and Benjamin Zephaniah. However, I became inspired by watching a lot of younger new voices, and for this piece I liked the concept and performance of Scratch and Dreams by Eric Darby. This became “Priceless Hope”, and it is as a piece probably will never be finished. As the editing process is true to slam style in that any ideas and feelings, feedback from the audience infuse the changes I make.
Links shared by Stew:
Blog – http://www.goodopenenglish.com/writing/
NPO – http://www.leipzig-writers.de
Eric Darby – https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JfTa4B7wQ_8
Poem written by Stew:
Priceless hope.
Come closer, come closer!
Here is some priceless hope
It is a bit dented, scratched, worn down at the edges, lost it´s gloss.
It is not down a dark alley, book ended by criticism and cynicism.
Stuck, collecting fluff with the coins between the sofa cushions.
Discarded with the dog eared, not read for awhile book.
On the back shelf collecting dust.
If you look into that dark corner you can hear fear and despair
squabbling over who gets to creep out first. Leave them to it.
Yes it has had a rough ride.
But do not hide it.
Yes it needs a bit of spit and polish.
Hard grind and grit, keep it alive
Let it thrive.
Nurture and tend to it.
Just a bit of hope.
You thought it had forsaken you.
But it always comes back.
It needed some time to dwell.
Take your sleeve and wipe the mucky, misted over windows,
peer through, you can just about see a couple basking in their new love,
they are the future.
Just a bit of hope.
Frayed, thread bare and in need of repair.
Ignore the shouts from fools.
Get out your tools, those that bolster and support.
Show them that hope all shiny, new & home grown.
And see them curl their lip, coz they aint got they own.
Here is a piece of hope, it is yours!
© Creative Commons 2014
