HOW TO MAKE POETRY GO FROM POSE TO PROSE

From MAKE POETRY WEIRD AGAIN · 01:15:31

Show by Nols Nathankski

How to Make Poetry Go from Pose to Prose, with DominiqueDominique’s charity life drawing session, How Does It Feel To Be Observed?, is on 26 November. Details below.This week the studio has a life model in it. Dominique poses for artists all over London and writes poems when the mood takes her. She also belongs to the MPWA creation myth. Nols met her at a Sunday morning workshop at the Jago in March 2025, and that was the morning he first had the idea to run workshops of his own. The croissants upstairs have been stolen in her honour ever since.Nols and Dominique talk about the holy work of keeping still. They go back to the Jago, where a man put his Notes app on a roulette wheel and let the spin pick his poem, and on to school, where Dominique gave a friend a simile and got no thanks for it. They wonder why the whole country started writing in lockdown, what boredom does to a brain, and whether we have gone and made a god out of a chatbot. Nols remembers reading a ten-minute Quentin Crisp soliloquy naked at Hackney Wick Life Drawing, then finding out the poems were the easy part and the 45-minute pose was the real penance. Dominique thinks about the thousands of drawings of her that are out in the world, a kind of immortality left in strangers’ portfolios, and what they have repaired in her. They get on to sauna manners, backhanded compliments, the drawing that turns you into the Antichrist, and why an open mic dies if everyone in the room is the same.Order of serviceThe Jago, the croissants and Dominique’s first open micYear Three and the stolen simileLockdown, boredom and a neurologist’s prescription: write, walk, talk to someone every dayWe’ve made a god, and most of the old ones were monstersNaked poems: being nude, wearing costume as armour, the long poseA thousand drawings, a nude in a bottleA good room needs every kind of person: life drawing, open mics and WordSpacePrompts, live and timedDominique’s open micInto the Waves, the collection she hasn’t written yetShout-outs and a blessing to go out onPrompts for the congregation (three minutes each, write along at home)The last thing you take before it spoilsStart in the light and end in the dark, an alba turned inside outWhat is still flowering?For a title, Nols swears by joining the first word and the last. Dominique’s poem ended up called “Toddlers Gone”.Dominique’s open micLiving Thingsa haiku about the fair coming to town, read twice by requestIn Two Hours of Stillness, the poem she shook through at her first open mic and still wouldn’t changeLife Drawing Fundraiser How Does It Feel To Be Observed? Thursday 26 November An independent collaboration between Anik Sessions (@anik_sessions) and Dominique (@dominique_life_model), marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and raising money to combat violence against women and girls. Bring a pencil and something to give, and be one of the people who looks well.Shout-outs Life drawingLeytonstone Life Drawing (@stone_life_drawing and @leytonstone_life_drawing)Bruce at LifeDrawing.art (@lifedrawing.art), at Hackney Picturehouse and soon at the Hallelujah near HaggerstonIzzy Dixon (@id_inks) at the Snooty Fox (@snootyfoxlondon)CC Noir (@cici_noir): life model, burlesque performer and trans rights activist, with videos on life modelling coming soonTimothy at Art Design Futures (@artdesignfutures)Poetry and mediaBi+ Lines, an anthology of bi+ poets edited by Helen Bowell (@helen.bowell)WordSpace (@wordspacepoems), where names come out of a hat and nobody gets to queue-jumpMary Oliver, best found in a charity shop and read on a beachThe Blindboy Podcast (@blindboyboatclub)The Good Place by Michael SchurAlso mentioned in passing Quentin Crisp and The Naked Civil Servant; Darren Shan’s vampire circus; Ray Bradbury; Hackney Wick Life Drawing; Hackney Wick Community Sauna; Sam Claydon’s new studio; Joe Morgan Black and the circle of drawings in a tentWords to carry you out Dominique says to rest when you need to. Find the thing that calms you and the people who are good for you, and keep watch over your community. Rest shared with others counts double, so take yourself to an open mic or a life drawing class, and tag the people you make things with.Follow Dominique: @dominique_life_model Episode image: @mikiwecelBe good, be gone, and take your clothes off when you need to.

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