Elisa’s group of writers were scribbling one day,
When Taliesin the bard decided to play.
He took each in turn and placed on the spot
their writings and thinkings, and lest they forgot
it was all done in fun he included himself,
Though all knew he versed as fine as an elf.

Now, Elisa maintains, oft-times at some length,
It’s the detail in writing that gives it its strength.
So blend fiction and fact, your new truth to create,
Leave boring events to a forgotten fate.
After all, it's just a story, a fable, a tale,
And taken with salt, a sense of proportion prevails.

Lucas’ writings are crafted with humour and art,
Some sad, yet mostly they gladden the heart.
He tells it straight forth, from his hip it can seem,
Exciting, and surprising, whatever the theme.
Of hit-men or natives, neighbours or those from afar,
Familiar or strange, or even bizarre.

Lisa wrote gently of a pub lunch, where tapping her toe,
She waited for a friend whose watch was quite slow.
’Twas a sunny May day, cherry blossom time,
A good lunch, a glass, stories of love, death and crime.
Through the window she spied a hearse all topped with glass.
Horse drawn to their end. She wondered who’d passed.

Of Blackpool clubs, trans issues and passing May writes,
And the nightmares one meets, you know the types.
You're trapped in a shower adrift in space flight,
Suffering twinges of nausea from the pin pricks of light.
She'd craft your illusions and delusions and play with your mind,
Unbreakable psychoses; to ecsape you daren't shut your eyes.

With her girlfriend in a Dutch attic there Sophie slept,
Collecting eggs, mucking out, clean beasties she kept.
She went to a party, a male stripper she saw,
Forced in, she maintained, it quite dropped her jaw.
With pathos and humour and stories to tell,
She fills pages in note-books and hard drives as well.

The fantastic tempts Olivia to go her full length
and beyond. You’re aware it’s part of her strength.
The feet with no man, a ghost you presumed
Who only steps out at the full of the moon.
The footstep still coming, your glass empties of booze,
Who’s walking towards you? A pair of brown shoes!

Adam’s persuasion is to ponder and write
African tales of both black and of white.
With images and words, sharp it’s agreed,
he crafts stories, oft poignant, for others to read.
Now apartheid’s long gone, it had more than it’s day,
But black words on white paper he continues to lay.

Leäne’s from The Smoke, one of fourteen she tells,
As a child in poverty and hostels did dwell.
She writes of the past, times harsh and severe,
Recording her mum’s tales of long yesteryear.
For youngsters with needs to know of the past,
The times that she writes of, recorded will last.

Fast paced writes Jessica, with suspense and fear,
What’s inside folk’s heads in her stories appear.
With doors broken in, phones dropped to the floor,
The feeling of menace allows tension to soar.
What happens next? I’m afraid I’ve no clue,
There’s many an ending her mind could construe.

Her brother found dead, on the strand far away,
Gave Morag to write and seek out where truth lay.
That what made the front pages sold papers is clear,
Speculation and titillation and nonsense and smears.
Belfast she writes is a city of tension with itself at war,
But the murals told her no more than she knew before.

Fay declaims verse in dialect gey strang. As now,
Yance ower, lang past, there were reet folk and wrang.
Great things and laal yans, the fells and the lakes,
Of everyday events her poems she makes.
But everyday events are what make up our times,
Like us, soon forgotten, but, perhaps not, in rhyme.

Good memory for detail Beth has, as you know,
Of holidays seared in her mind, long, long ago.
The things on the walls, the kitchen, the beds,
Her childhood memories are etched in her head.
But now she’s older and wanting it written in ways
That’ll leave a permanent record of her childhood days.

Me? I’m Taliesin the bard, a Shelt and a Gael,
I’ve spent my whole life in the telling of tales.
I’ve taught using stories to get meaning across,
And if they’re pure fiction, well, the truth was no loss.
I’m an anarchist it’s true, and my stories to tell
Are written as fantasy, and lies as well.

Still, Elisa maintains, oft-times at some length,
It’s the detail in writing that gives it its strength.
Some liberties I’ve taken, this new truth to create,
Leaving realities behind me to a written off fate.
After all, this too is just a story, a fable, a tale,
Best taken with salt, and whisky or ale.