{"id":1081,"date":"2007-10-12T16:35:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-12T16:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1081"},"modified":"2007-10-12T16:35:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-12T16:35:00","slug":"juliet-englands-honing-her-building-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/juliet-englands-honing-her-building-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"Juliet England's honing her building skills"},"content":{"rendered":"

Building Skills<\/span>


The man blinked, adrift <\/span>
On the classroom\u2019s sea of papers and pens <\/span>
(The tools of our trade.) <\/span>

There were twelve of us, faces eager<\/span>
To learn how to teach those for whom words danced on the page. <\/span>
Ready to embark on our voyage. <\/span>

He\u2019d seen the advert as well, the one about helping with <\/span>
Building Skills. <\/span>
And thought he could pass on his know-how with bricks and cement. <\/span>

For writers are bricklayers, too. <\/span>
The piecing together <\/span>
Layer by painful layer. <\/span>

Each brick, each word with in its place <\/span>
Keeping the others propped up. <\/span>

Sometimes, you smash the thing down and start over. <\/span>
Sometimes, the whole thing collapses.<\/span>
(Danger: Poem under construction. <\/span>
Hazard: falling verbs.)<\/span>
 <\/span>
You need firm foundations <\/span>
The right tools. <\/span>

The second week, <\/span>
Only 11 of us showed up. <\/span>


\u2022 Juliet England is a regular contributor to IS&T<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Building SkillsThe man blinked, adrift On the classroom\u2019s sea of papers and pens (The tools of our trade.) There were twelve of us, faces eagerTo learn how to teach those for whom words danced on the page. Ready to embark on our voyage. He\u2019d seen the advert as well, the one about helping with Building […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}