Elise Lester and Alex Garcia were invited to take part in a Creative Writing Workshop at the Redcliffs Community Centre.

Earlier in the term, Elise Lester and Alex Garcia were invited to take part in a Creative Writing workshop at the Redcliffs Community Centre. The day was spent working with award-winning poet and experienced tutor, Gail Ingram, and aimed to engage students with their responses to the sea and develop writing skills to create poetry to express those ideas. Poems were then entered into the Seaweek Poetry Competition.

Both Elise and Alex had a lot of fun and came away with some wonderful ideas and inspiration for their own writing.

It was also fantastic to hear that a piece that Elise Lester entered into the Creative Writing Seaweek competition came in 4th place!

This is one of the pieces that Elise entered into the competition:

Toes touching molluscs like a shock to my heart,

Screaming bloody murder as we toss them at our unsuspecting aunts,

Round like our sun,

But scarier than an algebra test,

Digging our toes in the mud,

Dirty water up to our knees, the best,

Us kids avoid molluscs the way teenagers avoid showering,

Scalier than starfish,

They smell like death,

They stick to your legs like scales on fish,

Or onion smell on your breath,

They scare me,

And my cousin uses that to his advantage.

When I sleep,

I am a starfish,

Sprawled out,

All limbs hanging

Over the edge of my rock

bed.

My sister is more of a clownfish,

She never sleeps and

She darts around non stop.

I don’t think I move when I sleep,

But when I rise,

It takes me a century to get going,

A millennia to open my eyes,

But when I do end up moving,

It’s short and fast,

Just like my sister.-

Pukeko, what are you doing,

You—keko, there's a storm brewing,

Pukeko, your time here is looming,

You—keko, don’t you realise there’s now

Few kekos and scientists have found that`

Pukekos are becoming extinct, but…

Hey pukeko, show us how you dance?

Yeah you—keko, will you do a little prance?

Show—keko, that we should bring you home and bring you

Through keko this big leap into the unknown blue

Pukeko world,

Blue—keko plans unfurled,

To-keko bring you back into this

Echo—keko,

Of a world that used to thrive.