Posted on by mark

Cult Challenge: October 2024: The Black Violin – 4/4: “Piotr Stands Among Fire”

4/4: “PIOTR STANDS AMONG FIRE”

Deadline For Entries: 31st of October 2024 Back in January 2020, I had the rather brilliant idea (ahem) of Cult members collaborating on a poetry novella. It would take part over the course of a year, and there would be Four Chapters that told the story of Piotr and the somewhat magical, Black Violin. The first two chapters were completed, but the Third and Fourth somehow became elusive and mythical in their own right, and they – and the book itself – never materialised. All of these years later, I have decided that the time to finish The Black Violin is now, and so I am pleased to say that October’s Challenge will see the poems for the final Chapter selected, with the book destined to be released on the shortest day of the year, the 21st of December 2024, just shy of five years after we started. Some things are worth the wait (ahem.)
Background to the Project: There will be a series of challenges that will hopefully see us build a collaborative story centred upon a mythical and magical Black Violin. The idea is that we will publish a Poetry Novella, featuring a variety of witness statements, in the form of poems. The Black Violin will end-up being published as a book of 40 poems. This is the fourth, and final part of the Challenge. The key idea of the writing is that I am asking you to write poems that work as witness reports. In many ways the core story is the least important aspect – it is more how you describe what you see rather than what it is that is happening – the writing rather than the tale. It has always fascinated me that ten people can see the same event and notice/focus on completely different details, and I am hoping that this is what will happen here – even though the details will largely be coming from your imagination. Each of the four challenges will work in the same way:
      1. I will give you a very rough and scant-of-detail description of an event
      2. You must imagine yourself to be present, although as a witness, NOT one of those actively involved
      3. You must imagine and then write a poem of up to forty lines that gives your interpretation of what has occurred from your perspective.  These can describe everything I tell you and more, or concentrate on one minor part – you decide.
      4. You, as the witness, can be anybody or thing, you can talk about yourself if that helps too. (i.e. You could be a bird as easily as a butcher, you could be seeing the scene in a TV advert or hearing a child telling the tale in the words of a nursery rhyme.)
      5. These descriptions can be painted with a broad brush or focus on minuscule details – a description of a butterfly passing in the foreground is as valid as a chronological description of the events that were happening behind.
      6. Your forty lines may be used in many ways – a series of haiku would be as valid as a concrete poem or the redaction of a newspaper report. You decide.
      7. At the end of each of the challenges, I will choose Ten of the poems that as a group work best in describing differing perspectives of the events.
The Story So Far: You can download the first Three Chapters, here: CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE STORY SO FAR
The Challenge 4/4: “Piotr stands among fire, surrounded by shards of broken ice, the Hunter’s Cabin no longer intact, he is unable to stop playing the Black Violin, rainbow spells wafting from a blur of fingers, wood crackling as the trees of the forest turn to take in the spectacle. The trees aren’t alone. Woodland creatures:  bears, wolves, boar, mink and stoat, swarm slowly inwards toward him in concentric bands of refracted colour. Old animosities forgotten in the moment. The beating of his fingers on the fretboard draws them in, takes them over. Piotr sees them unseeing, and slowly walks into and through their massed ranks. Leading them, deeper into the forest and then, marching to his rhythm, into the country beyond.” Describe the scene, or part of it, in the form of a poem of forty lines or less. Email it to: competition@hedgehogpress.co.uk
The Prize:
    1. The Forty poems chosen for The Black Violin will all appear in a book to be published on the shortest day of the year, the Winter Solstice – 21st of December 2024
    2. Everybody appearing in it will receive author copies
    3. The Final Challenge / Chapter will be released in October 2024