28th September  2018

I love Tatton Park in Knutsford  http://www.tattonpark.org.uk/home.aspx and have been lucky enough to facilitate creative writing workshops here for a few years now. Since September 2018 though I have been granted the position of Writer in Residence and this is the first day of my residency.  It’s warm and there is a  piercing blue sky, unexpected this late in September.  Arctic weather to come according to the forecast.  I can’t see it myself.

http://www.tattonpark.org.uk

I am sitting outside The Stables café in Tatton Park with my coffee and banana.  Yah boo to flapjacks. This is a new project and my resolution is strong.

There is a hum of chatter: couples, groups, mums and dads with prams.  Inside the café a child calls out like a jackdaw.  Outside the jackdaws are silent; hunting crusts and debris. A group of cyclists stand up from the picnic tables like a Mexican Wave, clouds try to shape themselves into pictures but they are too small to amount to much.  They float around like they’re in that game ‘who wants to be in my gang.’

The banana is finished, the dregs of coffee gone cold and hey presto there are lines of poetry in the opening pages of my new notebook.

6th October 2018

It’s cooler today in the shade; clouds and the threat of rain.  School parties are visiting the Japanese garden; kids kitted out for all eventualities, teachers in civvies flapping around like anxious swans.  There aren’t many taking coffee outdoors today. I have given in to the temptation of a flapjack, my resolutions are tucked into my back pocket.

A lovely contrast strikes me between the old brickwork and archways and the Weeping Willow, Scots Pine and Horse-Chestnut; the trees moving closer like conspirators because of the cloud. Or maybe they are lonely and looking for company.

The cyclists are back and some odd exotic creatures in silk frocks and suits galloping through the stable yard to the wedding fayre.  A strange contrast to the jeans and backpacks, beanie hats and damp dogs.

Today I am going to walk to the mere, notebook in hand and hopefully this place will work its magic again.

Rosie knows that her questions are dangerous.

Aunty will hang them out like dead moles on the back fence.


The stench will turn milk sour.

TOWN is the moving tale of Rosie’s quest to find her birth mother, helped by a stranger and the magic of the town’s annual Festival. Dragons on bicycles, devils playing guitars and ‘a bit of magic after all these years’. This is only part of the glittering backdrop.

“Lively, bawdy, a verbal Beryl Cook fleshes out the secret worlds pulsing under the surface of an ordinary county town.”

“Tremendous performance of great narrative and immediate imagery. A triumph.”

Performed on tour by Joy Winkler and Andrew Rudd

View excerpt of TOWN via this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khhql5HJQz0&feature=youtu.be.

Film backdrop produced by Ian Coppack features additional artwork by Karen Ross and Carl Longmate. TOWN was directed by Kevin Dyer and supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

 New for 2016   A series of workshops at Tatton Park during 2016

Workshop for Children – Weird and Whacky

A special opportunity to experience a creative writing workshop with former Cheshire poet laureate, Joy Winkler, with content inspired by Roald Dahl’s stories. About this workshop, Joy says: “Children love to use their imaginations. Roald Dahl fed those imaginations with weird and whacky characters. In this is a creative writing workshop, children will have a chance to create their own eccentric but believable individuals, find out about their lives, problems and come up with wild and amazing solutions. Maybe they will discover a spaceman who gets travel sick or the Cloud Gobbler who has lost his appetite. The possibilities are vast. The power will be in their hands.” Recommended for children aged between 7 and 11 years old. The package also includes a notebook and pen for you to use during the session and take home to continue your writing. This event must be pre-booked. To reserve your place, use the link below to book online or call our Education Office on 01625 374428.

Workshop for Adults: Language of Flowers

A special opportunity to experience a creative writing workshop with former Cheshire poet laureate, Joy Winkler, with content inspired by Tatton’s beautiful natural surroundings. About this workshop, Joy says: “The Victorians used to send subtle messages in their gifts of flowers. In this creative writing workshop, we will look at how flowers and nature can be both inspirational and thought provoking.” The package includes a tasty cream tea and a notebook and pen, for you to continue your writing journey at home. This event must be pre-booked. To reserve your place, use the link below to book online or call our Education Office on 01625 374428.

Workshop for adults: Borrowed Scenery

On Thursday 26 May 2016

Tatton Park, Knutsford, Cheshire, WA16 6QN

A special opportunity to experience a creative writing workshop with former Cheshire poet laureate, Joy Winkler, with content inspired by Tatton’s beautiful natural surroundings. About this workshop, Joy says: “This workshop will look at how we can enrich our creative writing by applying the technique used by builders of Japanese gardens who take into consideration nearby or distant landmarks to enhance their space.” The package includes a tasty cream tea and a notebook and pen, for you to continue your writing journey at home. This event must be pre-booked. To reserve your place, use the link below to book online or call our Education Office on 01625 374428.

On Thursday 4 August 2016

Tatton Park, Knutsford, Cheshire, WA16 6QN

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Description

A special opportunity to experience a creative writing workshop with former Cheshire poet laureate, Joy Winkler, with content inspired by Roald Dahl’s stories. About this workshop, Joy says: “Children love astonishing stories. Roald Dahl showed us that grannies are not always cuddly and kind and giants are not always dangerous. But good storytelling is important no matter who or what the story is about. In this creative writing workshop children will have the opportunity to create unusual stories using the landscape of the surrounding in Tatton Park. However, flowers may not always be beautiful and sweet smelling and trees may have unexpected ways of treating children who climb them and sit in their branches.” Recommended for children aged between 7 and 11 years old. This package includes a notebook and pen to use for the session and take home to continue your writing. This event must be pre-booked. To reserve your place, use the link below to book online or call our Education Office on 01625 374428.

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Contact Tatton Park

Telephone 01625 374428

Timings 10.30am – 12.30pm

Cost £10

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Link

http://tattonparkthemagicalworldofroalddahlstepaway.eventbrite.co.uk

Write like Roald Dahl

On Thursday 22 September 2016

Tatton Park, Knutsford, Cheshire, WA16 6QN

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Description

A special opportunity to experience a creative writing workshop with former Cheshire poet laureate, Joy Winkler. Roald Dahl knew how to tell a good story and to make connections with his readers. In this workshop, we will discuss how he achieved this and discover how to write for children without falling into clichés and dull storylines. We will find exciting and unusual characters who will lead us to tell our young readers about adventures and exploits that they will love to listen to again and again. The package includes a cream tea and a notebook and pen for you to use during the session and then take home to continue your writing journey. This event must be pre-booked. To reserve your place, use the link below to book online or call our Education Office on 01625 374428.

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Contact Tatton Park

Telephone 01625 374428

Timings 10.00am – 4.00pm

Cost £15

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Link

http://tattonparkwritelikeroalddahl.eventbrite.co.uk

Write like Roald Dahl

On Thursday 20 October 2016

Location Tatton Park, Knutsford, Cheshire, WA16 6QN

Description

A special opportunity to experience a creative writing workshop with former Cheshire poet laureate, Joy Winkler. With or without illustrations our young readers need to be able to imagine the environment of where a story takes place and see clearly what the characters are like. Roald Dahl was a master at showing them this. In this creative writing workshop we will look at why the details matter and how to ‘paint’ them into our stories making them seem natural and realistic no matter how fantastic or grotesque. The package includes a cream tea and a notebook and pen for you to use during the session and then take home to continue your writing journey. This event must be pre-booked. To reserve your place, use the link below to book online or call our Education Office on 01625 374428.

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Contact Tatton Park

Telephone 01625 374428

Timings 10.30am – 4.00pm

Cost £15

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Link

http://tattonparkwritelikeroaldddahl2.eventbrite.co.uk

A new themed collection of poetry by Joy Winkler is available from October 2014.

In it she uses flowers and links to nature to reflect on events and people from her life. A rose, cornfield or the scent of lilac together with many more evocative images hold the key to an abundance of recollections; poignant, funny and thought provoking.

In the poem, ‘Tale: a list, a reckoning’ she recounts a visit to her mother, taking gossip like a bouquet to make a ‘meadow by her bedside’. The white and gold of childhood and my chattering, light as thistledown, blow out the hours.

‘Shared memories keep us connected,’ she says. ‘We all have a story or memory inspired by flowers. Somehow they thread our lives together like a daisy chain’.

This is a beautifully produced booklet which includes commissioned paintings by Karen Rossart. www.krossart.co.uk

Cheshire Poet Laureate 2005

Joy Winkler was born in Barnsley but now lives in Macclesfield, Cheshire. She is a poet, freelance creative writing facilitator and performer.

2014 ‘Stolen Rowan Berries’

A themed collection of poetry in a beautifully produced booklet which includes commissioned paintings by Karen Rossart.

In this collection the poems reflect on flowers and links to nature. A rose, cornfield or the scent of lilac together with many more evocative images which hold the key to an abundance of recollections; poignant, funny and thought provoking.

‘Shared memories keep us connected. We all have a story or memory inspired by flowers.  Somehow they thread our lives together like a daisy chain’.

2013- 2014 ‘TOWN’

An innovative verse/drama written and performed by Joy Winkler, accompanied by Andrew Rudd which toured the North West successfully in 2013/14. “Thought-provoking, wonderfully performed bittersweet poetry.  Deeply pleasurable”.

The script is available as a book which includes original art work by Karen Rossart.

Commissioned by Cheshire East to write a poem for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee

2007/8 and 2009/10 ‘Bunch of Fives’ and ‘Fourpenny Circus’

Two innovative poetry roadshows performed as a collaboration, which toured the Northwest and other areas in England.

Workshops and projects

Founded Macclesfield Creative Writers’ group which meets weekly in the town’s library. The group holds regular writing workshops, invites visiting authors and gives readings to the general public. The group has published two anthologies.

Worked with children at Mablin’s Lane School writing celebratory poetry to mark the school’s 25 year anniversary.

Gave Masterclass for  Apples and Snakes on ‘Writers Working in Prison’ and is currently a member of the Board of Writers in Prison Foundation, a charitable organisation that arranges residencies and workshops in prisons throughout England and Wales.

Worked with Cartwheel Arts based in Heywood on several projects aimed at working with young mothers who want to write stories and poems for their children.  This has led to two illustrated publications ‘Children of the Dream’ and ‘My Magic Pen’. Also worked with children at the Darnhill Festival, whose stories were published in another beautifully produced booklet called ‘Tales from Darnhill’.

Worked on a project called Writing Lives, an initiative of Salford University, working with the residents of Broughton in Salford.  There were three groups involved in creative writing workshops which ran on a weekly basis throughout the year.  The groups’ work culminated in an exhibition in Media City.

Appointed Cheshire Poet Laureate and commissioned to write many poems to celebrate events in the county’s year.  These poems and others written during that laureate year were published in collection called ‘On the Edge’.

Collaborated with artist Steve Des Landes on an installation on the Shropshire Union Canal.  Commissioned work done during her Laureate year has also been displayed as a vinyl in Ellesmere Port Library and etched into the courtyard, which form part of the redevelopment of Ellesmere Port Civic Square.

Writer in Residence at HMP Styal for seven years. Facilitated writers’ and readers’ groups for the female prisoners and involved them in many other arts-related activities.

Participants in workshops have included members of the public, prison inmates, ex-offenders and people on probation, writer’s groups, school children, young mums, people taking part in community based projects, elderly and students with emergent literacy skills.

Five collections published: ‘On the Edge’ (Cheshire County Council, 2006), ‘Built to Last’ (National Poetry Foundation), ‘Morag’s Garden’ (National Poetry Foundation), ‘TOWN’ (2013) supported by Art’s Council England and ‘Stolen Rowan Berries’ (2014) published by Sharp Pencils Press.  Work also published in magazines and anthologies and broadcast on radio.

Home phone: 01625 612527
Mobile: 07745 054460

e-mail: joywinkler@sky.com

Joy Winkler is available for readings and/or workshops on ‘The Language of Flowers’. She will work with you to tease out some of the memories that you may have tied up in daisy chains and bouquets. She will also read some of her collection.

Following a workshop at Ellesmere Port Library one of the participants said: ‘This has completely changed the way I look at life’.

To everything there is a season

A time to be born, anointed on the fontanel
by a flutter of heart whispers, to be owned,
to be rocked in trembling arms, sung to sleep
by reclaimed lullabies, to be nurtured by
body warmth and the cadence of dialect
and home-spun rhyme. A time, a time.

A time to grow tall like meadow grasses,
Dog Daisies and corn. To ripen and glow
and to reflect the beauty of buttercups in
secret shallows, to quest under dappled
holly and Scots pine, to warn or to wish
on the fallen feather of a fickle magpie.

A time to dance with Ash keys, fly with
summer dust, trust in the brush of a kiss
from the sun. To prick the nestling’s skin
with a legacy of plumage, to sit expectantly
on the tip of a bee’s proboscis or trace
the patterning of a brimstone butterfly.

A time to thread sharps and flats into a song,
sing along with a new tune or an old tune.
To graft a shift of light onto the evening
and ride in the tissue boat that is the
early risen moon, to squeeze another
day like toothpaste onto the dawn.

‘Stolen Rowan Berries’

A new themed collection of poetry by Joy Winkler, available from October 2014.

Flowers and links to nature are used to reflect on events and people from the poet’s life.  A rose, cornfield or the scent of lilac together with many more evocative images hold the key to an abundance of recollections; poignant, funny and thought provoking.

‘Shared memories keep us connected. We all have a story or memory inspired by flowers.  Somehow they thread our lives together like a daisy chain’.

This is a beautifully produced booklet which includes commissioned paintings by Karen Rossart.

‘TOWN’

Script of Joy Winkler’s verse/drama which toured the North West successfully in 2013/14. “Thought-provoking, wonderfully performed bittersweet poetry.  Deeply pleasurable”

The book includes original art work by Karen Rossart.

‘On the Edge’

A collection celebrating Joy Winkler’s successful year as Cheshire’s first female Poet Laureate, combining commissioned pieces with poems that use the changing seasons to reflect on the constant rhythm of life.

‘Splendidly simple’ vignettes of small town life, a story and cast of characters lurk in each sparse verse. Joy Winkler’s wry observations of life sound an agreeably melancholy note and skilfully juxtapose town and country, life and death, love and loss.

‘Joy Winkler is a true poet laureate.  Her poems are peopled, human, full of the life of the community around her.’ Fiona Sampson

ISBN 0 904532 90 9

Cost per book £7.50 (+ £1.00 post and packaging) Signed copies are available direct from the author. Email to: joywinkler@sky.com for more information

‘Morag’s Garden’
Joy’s first collection of poetry, published by National Poetry Foundation in 1994. In it you will find a crowd of people from Barnsley, Doncaster, Flamborough, all clamouring to be heard.

ISBN 1 870556 98 4

Cost per book £5.00 (+ £1.00 post and packaging) Signed copies are available direct from the author. Email to: joywinkler@sky.com for more information

On the Sunday my mother gets pneumonia,
the Yorkshire puddings still need making.
I take four heaps of flour using the big spoon
up to her bedroom for approval.

Illness clutters the bedside table,
tablets, Vick, the kitchen clock
that’s usually downstairs in the daytime.
Crack the eggs, just enough milk.
Her eyes glint like wet glass.

I imagine myself cooking on telly -
brash like Fanny Craddock,
I tumble flour into liquid, flaunt
my fork, circle and cut, circle and cut.

There’s a thickness to the batter
that can’t be taught. I take it again
for her to feel. She wants to use
the flat of her hand. I stand there,
try not to touch her nightdress,
damp, done up to the throat.

I poke a tongue of lard into each tin,
she shouts down wait until it spits.
Half-one and they’re in from the pub,
sitting at the kitchen table
with straight backs and expectations.

The puddings are golden, on time, hollow.
I take hers up on a tray. She’s sleeping.

 Commended in York Mix Poetry Competition 2014

The clinics are chalked on the board so we wait,
each choosing a chair on its own, as though illness
could jump in our hair like lice.

A man assists his father with a zimmer,
impatient with the old man’s thin questions.
He handles him roughly into a seat, neatens
the lay of his legs, his hair.

No sooner are they settled when a nurse calls,
All for Dr Patel follow me.

And we do, a whole line of us not doing the conga.
Other patients tuck their legs beneath,
make way for us and our hopes for a miracle.