On Wednesday I met again with Shamshad Khan who is going to run the preliminary classes at St James School in Haslingden. The first of these will be in just under three weeks time; things are moving fast.
I’m very happy to have Shamshad taking the lead on the pilot project. She had an immediate grasp of where I was coming from, even though, especially on our first meeting, my ideas seemed to me to be still vague and approximate. But when we talked things came together fast; plus she has a visual, tactile grasp of things too – suggesting the idea of the children taking home small matchboxes stuffed with folded notes as a way of sending messages to the parents and families so that they know what we’re up to, and inviting them to join in.
Shamshad gave me a copy of MEGALOMANIAC, her book of poems published by Salt Publishing. It’s a book I’m dipping in and out of, a great joy; to quote Lemn Sissay ‘it is vivid, vivacious and veracious’.