This post is by Angela Williams. A Founder Member of Pens Around the World, she left us in 2021, to pursue a demanding creative writing course. We wish her well! More about Angela on our Friends of Pens page here.
Choose one of these to get the pen moving across the page!
Write about an experience at a fairground. Use all the senses so the reader is transported to the scene. Poem or short fiction.
Something surprising you found in a drawer or cupboard. Think letters, cards, photos, keys, tickets… anything that comes to mind. What memory does it spark? If based on a real experience feel free to fill in the gaps with fiction.
Finding new life in an unexpected place.
Good luck!
(The featured image for this post is a detail of “Fairground” by Felix Nussbaum, 1925, Sourced from Wikimedia at
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Felix_Nussbaum_fairground.jpg )
The fair came to town when I was sixteen
We all went along, ate hot dogs and ice cream.
On the waltzers we whirled with a shriek and a scream
After which we all felt incredibly green.
We tried all the games, threw some hoops, ping pong balls.
Shot the rifles, won a teddy, when we’d exhausted the stalls,
We spied the Hall of Mirrors, so we all trooped inside,
The glass it distorted, made us laugh till we cried.
My boyfriend, my hand grabbed, I’ve something to show,
Was the Tunnel of Love, and inside we would go.
Oh yes, I replied as keen as the mustard.
When appeared at the end I was pink and quite flustered.
So much innocent fun and it’s passed in a blink.
Or am I looking through glasses that are tinted so plnk.
The fairs of today seem quite tatty and tarnished,
The glamour of yesteryear seems quite to have vanished.
Lovely, Pat. You’ve captured the innocence and excitement of youth in a poignant way.
It’s funny how fairs bring out accounts of early loves. There’s something sensual about the fair with its sights, sounds, smells and tastes!
I know what you mean about today’s fairs. The only one I went to in recent years that captured the atmosphere of an old-fashioned one was in Bruges in Belgium. They even had a hall of mirrors. Hope you’ll work on this poem further and send it off somewhere!