Creative Writing

Our creative writing sessions are led by a volunteer during the drop-in sessions on a fortnightly basis. They embrace all levels of reading and writing skills.

The aims and objectives of the sessions are to:

engage with guests whatever their level of literacy
provide a means for self expression and creativity which is universally acceptable
build confidence and self-esteem.

“Writing’s not the easiest of the expressive arts because it comes with an accretion of rules, education, formality and embarrassment. I find many of the guests I talk to say they can’t write because they can’t spell or don’t have neat hand writing or little grasp of punctuation and grammar, and this misperception is a real barrier to starting. What I wanted to foster was the idea that when we write creatively we can forget the rules, forget what we learnt or didn’t learn at school, forget any sense of having to conform or that writing is done in a particular way by certain people. I wanted to free writing from all of these constraints and say, as it were, ‘let’s see what happens.’”

Doorway Volunteer and Creative Writing Workshop Faciliator

Doorway

If your life’s turned upside down

Your fortunes turned around

When the sky is black

And your world is turning blue

There’s no time to hesitate

Stand at the door and wait

Just come on down to Doorway

Come on through

There you’ve got a place

You’re not just another face

Not just another rebel without a clue.

In a friendly smile you see

Your protected humanity

So come on down to Doorway

Come on through

People care about each other

People change, people move

And people do.

Lay aside your schemes

Your long-lost forgotten dreams

And come on down to Doorway

Come on through

They say that love is wide

It is long and deep and high

It’s here on Earth not just up in the sky.

If you don’t believe me be my guest

And put it to the test

And come on down to Doorway

Come on through

Winter

You rise up early in the morning

And you haven’t got a hat

The doves are getting thinner

And the crows are getting fat

Gather up belongings

Stuff them in a sack

Creep away to town

Down some forgotten muddy track

The morning crowd disperses

And you pray that no-one stops

You pilfering sustenance

From round the back of shops

A ghost that haunts the days

Begging for a light

Blurring the wings of a moth

Into one long endless night

A dull and dreary day

Turning into gloomy dark

Brooding thoughts return

With the starlings in the park

Bundled in the doorway

An uninvited guest

Fists clenched under armpits

Knees drawn to the chest

A head disappears inside a coat

Like a tortoise in a shell

Who knows his home is heaven

Because homelessness

HELL

More poems by our guests can be found on our blog.