{"id":2460,"date":"2012-05-07T17:48:19","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T17:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=2460"},"modified":"2012-05-07T19:40:28","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T19:40:28","slug":"william-bedford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/william-bedford\/","title":{"rendered":"William Bedford"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Writing Lessons<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The new chalk\u2019s like a violin on wet slate,<br \/>\nrhyming white lessons in a tall room<br \/>\nwhere sunshine\u2019s never touched the walls.<br \/>\nHere generations come and go like moths,<\/p>\n<p>fidgeting to find the flame that burns,<br \/>\ngambling odd pennies at pitch-and-toss.<br \/>\n\u2018Horses won\u2019t set you free,\u2019 the teacher intones.<br \/>\n\u2018Only work does that.\u2019 His hand\u2019s red-knuckled<\/p>\n<p>with caning truth into boys already dead.<br \/>\nYou dream a space between chalk and slate<br \/>\nwhere words can catch the sun and purple moors.<br \/>\nOutside, the furnace clamour waits,<\/p>\n<p>the industrial grime of slack and smog<br \/>\nwhere writing lessons never change the clouds,<br \/>\nuntouched by dancing choirs of angel dust.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><a>William Bedford<\/a><\/strong> is a poet, short-story writer and children\u2019s novelist, his work appearing in magazines around the world. His novel <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/dp\/0749305339\/ref=nosim?tag=inswte0f-21\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Happiland<\/em> <\/a>was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and he has received Arts Council and Society of Authors awards for his poetry and fiction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Writing Lessons The new chalk\u2019s like a violin on wet slate, rhyming white lessons in a tall room where sunshine\u2019s never touched the walls. Here generations come and go like moths, fidgeting to find the flame that burns, gambling odd pennies at pitch-and-toss. \u2018Horses won\u2019t set you free,\u2019 the teacher intones. \u2018Only work does that.\u2019 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"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-2460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2460"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2467,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460\/revisions\/2467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}