Stranger Tales: Turning People into Poetry (workshop) @ Plot 9 Maze Hill

Introducing the second workshop developed and facilitated by (psychotherapist and couples therapist) Sammy Alattar  and this time co-facilitated by Sam Barfoot.

The workshop lasts 3 hours and takes place in the beautiful Greenwich Park and Plot 9 Maze Hill in a circular, parachute-covered space surrounded by nature. Participants are welcome to stay at the space after the workshop and enjoy tea and discussion around the fire.

In this workshop we'll first be meeting in Greenwich Park, before splitting off to people-watch in public, observing one or more people non-intrusively as if they were birds, small mammals, insects or, indeed, trees. This will be followed by a silent, contemplative walk down to Plot 9, our venue for the rest of the afternoon. There we'll spend some time around the fire writing poems or songs, odes to the people we just observed, imagining their stories and writing in the 1st person as if we were them.

We'll then pass our poems onto our nearest neighbour in the circle, who will interpret the piece just written, with the intention to "perform it" to the group. People are invited to bring an instrument to add atmosphere and punctuation to the spoken words.

After a round of performances, we’ll gather around the fire to reflect upon, share and compare our experiences of the poet’s journey that we undertook. What did we learn about life, ourselves and our stranger-muses in the process? How might we incorporate poet-ry[sic] into our everyday lives henceforth?

You, as poets for the afternoon, will become expert distillers and fermenters. As you distill, you’ll extract the rarefied essence of the subjects you observe. As you ferment, you’ll take ordinary people and lovingly turn them into the extraordinary. And what you’ll end up with - and take away with you in your hearts an in your memories - are the magical, artistic descendants of real human ancestors.
 

Background

A 14th century definition of the English word “leisure” was "the opportunity afforded by freedom from necessary occupations". Derived from the French “laisser” (“to allow”), it was a new word invented as serfdom began to come to an end in Britain. People hadn’t been allowed time outside of their necessary occupations for hundreds of years before its invention.

Fast-forward to 2024 and, though we may not feel it, compared to 700 years ago, most of us in the West find ourselves with a lot of time free from necessary occupations. The problem is we have mostly filled it with unnecessary preoccupations. We load our leisure time with frantic socialising, frenetic stimulation, pet maintenance, meme-searching, Instagram-snooping, WhatsApp-sharing, doom-scrolling and media-bingeing. In doing so we miss our own lives and other peoples.

Yet there are some amongst us with a natural immunity to this modern condition: the poets. For at least 3,000 years they have been showing us the way to be during down-time. Still, patient, aimless and in delicate observation, they gradually condense themselves and their subject(s) into an essential oil of human experience. Their process is a “be here now” meditation. Their product is a consummate capture of true life.

Practical Stuff

We are not fair-weather poets. This workshop will go ahead in all weather conditions, so please prepare for rain if needed.

Plot 9 is an outdoor venue under canvas. In the second half of the workshop we will be gathered around and keeping warm by the fire but please bring warm clothes. There is a compost loo at Plot 9.

About Sammy Alattar

 I run workshops that help people connect with and share their unmasked selves (authenticity, vulnerability), remind people of their insignificance/natural place in time and the universe (perspective, awe, gratitude), gather people together for shared journeys (community, comradery) and bring people into contact with their culturally-unacknowledged losses (disenfranchised grief/taboo loss). In the spirit of humanism, I want to support people to live more meaningful lives through exploring themselves, their reality and the reality of others. 

I strive to do this in unique, captivating ways that deeply immerse people in the subject matter at hand, via playful, creative, feeling-provoking, non-dogmatic, non-intellectualising, sometimes humorous & always participant-shaped practices and invented rituals (a mantra of mine is “all rituals were invented at some point”). 

I draw on my life experiences since birth, my career so far as an integrative psychotherapist and couples therapist, my decades-long work as a musician and experiments in video art, as well as whatever I've come across or have tried so far in any area, field or specialisation. 

From horticulture to cabaret to mythology, geopolitics to independent film , evolutionary neurobiology to human interest stories, esoteric religion to psychogeography, I'm endlessly fascinated and influenced by the explorations, research, personalities, meanderings, tragedy, performances, developments, wrong-turns, cultural impacts, rhetoric, delvings, wisdom and lore of other humans, as well as the non-human world that can't directly speak to us but is equally communicative and inspiring.

About Sam Barfoot

I'm interested in putting together workshops that encourage people to explore their imagination through playful methods of self-exploration and artistic collaboration. From  experience attending experimental workshops, I have seen first-hand how gatherings of people, focused on a shared goal, can generate novel and exciting ways of making sense of themselves and the world around them. 

In these spaces, I believe  people's expressive capacities can be facilitated and afforded the space to flourish. I draw on my experience working in primary and secondary schools (where the kids taught me more than I ever taught them!), festival welfare volunteering, artistic projects I've been involved in (electronic music production, improvisation, film-making) to open myself and others up to new and curious ways of interacting with the world.

Location

Our exact meeting point will be send in the confirmation email but will be in Greenwich Park.

Please note Plot 9 is not (yet) wheelchair accessible.