Writers’ Gallery
Showcase
The Creative Writers’ Studio
Discover selected works by participants in our writing workshops and community challenges — a testament to the power of practice, encouragement, and imaginative risk-taking. Share your favourites on social media and help spread the word so that every writer finds more readers.
A curated gallery of poetry and creative writing by participants, inspired by renowned visual artworks.
Untitled (Red), 1956 by Mark Rothko
Accordion Content
I find myself in the muddied realm of pink transition
the heart beat’s lifeline of middle age
where I am both daughter and mother
the blurred adult, the still wet child
I can dip my finger in the playfulness
of a tangerine dream, the bittersweet
zest of being free to run, free of worries
that pool at the edges of childhood.
When I need to dab and blot at the troubles
that bleed and seep into our lives, I wade
into the adult space that I also
inhabit, frame the responsibility of holding
the whole expanse, two distinct pigments of me
washing together
Instagram: @rowland.ellen
I confess, I am a murderess
Stained and trapped
By the blood I released
From his neck
An unfading scarlet letter
I wear in memory of the slain
Tinged with regret
As I remember sunsets
On better days
When our flesh were glazed
In Orange Crush
Gummy smiles
And wet ruby kisses
I made him blush
Who knew it would come to this?
A moment in duress
Severed our connection
His obsession is now my lesson
As I wade through
The bloody fires of hell
Unable to escape
Reruns of the slash
That drained his body
Of the crude venom
He spewd
Cut it out
Hush
I just wanted to break
His spell
Oh well
Farewell
No cheeky kisses will stitch up
this wound
Instagram: @thephiddler
once
at the exact moment of my death
I stood inside the womb of god
and felt my entire life
lived memories
held in a beating heart song
surrounding me
holding me inside my own self
stretching out in all direction around me
my lifeline reaching ahead and behind
in a soft saline stillness
boiling crimson stories
the bright strawberry love above
the soft cheek pink of mothering within
the dark burnt blood orange of my own wistful
wanderings below
and there I was
soft spilt milk cream line
dripping along
tethered yet always moving
once
at the exact moment of my death
I saw it all at
and knew this is where
I wanted to stay
long-time drought ripples well into the distance
bends the memory of once lush candy sweetness
into crystalline bitterness seared and beckoning
a parched goldfish mouth gaping
in a dustbowl as plenty burns in rainless defeat
stripping moisture off the surface of hope
the setting sun screams in unrelenting blood-orange hues
unrelieved of duty and the misplaced responsibility for life disappearing
I am lost in the limitless here – searching for the relief of beauty
stumbling through rusted dirt toward remote powder-white lines
a cocaine haze cut deep between a stain of land and sky
blurring reason and the vision of endless bright before me
Instagram: @be_nourished
a burst of light, and i arrive
hopeful, anticipatory, fully alive
a flash of orange that blinds so bright
i can smell citrus, to my utter delight
i float along on a sea of pink
buoyed by a Himalayan wave, i think
a raspberry wall – part garnet, part milk
greets me, arms open, soft as silk
warmed by a strawberry sun that shines
i sip waves of tangerine, sublime.
Instagram: @sarahjeannine
The First Cloud, 1887 by William Orchadson
Accordion Content
the chairs aren’t quite themselves
pulled up under tables – off – centre
the map on the wall has lost its latitude
the mirror’s blank stare refuses to be witness
she tastes his desperation in the lean of his back
his incomprehension in his pocketed hands
she’s a hot-housed rose, he is the one who treads the garden beds
a hustle of exaggeration in the scoop of the back of her dress
she wants to leave, her shoulder turns towards the door
he wants to dance, she’s sure her card is full
she doesn’t want a drink under his star, although the night is hot
she needs some air, she’s looking for an exit route
Instagram: @victoriapunch_
groundspeed (red piazza #2), 2001 by Rosemary Laing
Accordion Content
red and white blood cells pulse
sprawl across the forest floor
inner workings of decadence
upchucked, insist on more
more life, more gold
more blood, more bile
insatiable
insufferable
propagation
with her wiles
diseased
a breeze
she carries these
they float with ease
up through the trees
they cannot be contained
and if you try to stop her
you will soon forget your name
Instagram: @sarahjeanninewrites
Blue Flower, 1918 by Georgia O’Keefe
Accordion Content
suddenly she is cognizant
of her cerulean femininity
her divine luminescent
she is a holy mother bathed in light
an inner cave of cool delights
innocence to awareness
ignorance to pleasure
to honor her swoops and dips
she is ushered gently in
softly she smiles as she welcomes saintly sin
Instagram: @sarahjeanninewrites
Ram’s Head, Blue Morning Glory, 1938 by Georgia O’Keefe
Accordion Content
I never thought of myself as a wallflower, never
wanted to sit back, sit out and be always on show
always fancied myself an adventurer really
People to see, places to go.
I bloomed like the sun in the sky and
made heads turn, they’d stop to admire
and I would glow. Now I am mounted on a wall,
no wool or warmth about me
face sunken, looking like death.
Being a wallflower was never my intention.
Instagram: @victoriapunch_
Featured creative responses inspired by Purnima’s original artworks from our ekphrastic challenges.
Faerie Land (2006) by Purnima Ruanglertbutr
Accordion Content
Of all the things
I had overcome,
That had broke
and tore me,
Just to unleash me
Instagram: @thoughts_in_words.08
Could someone have
the ability to see her calm?
To entice it?
To think it was
graceful and angelic?
She imagined it would be
like spotting
a rare butterfly
or catching a glimpse of
how a waterfall glimmers
on a precise angle
of the sun-fleeting,
yet a moment
to treasure.
Mom, I shrunk myself
to be loved by you,
never knowing that
you tore off
your own wings
to let me fly
in a way you were
never allowed to
Everyone Has A Story (2006) by Purnima Ruanglertbutr
Accordion Content
I was drawn to a close;
the barrenness of it all called to a part of me,
I seldom met with.
It appeared beside me like a phantom self,
became my eyes and whispered to my heart.
My surroundings caved in as I tried to detach.
How was I supposed to stand before change?
Oh, but the doings of the heart;
I was drunk on memory lane,
moments held in time like stars hung from the night sky,
an old camera reel of negatives that had faded a little,
yet, narrated a beautiful tale of my old abode.
Carried dust as part of its existence!
Instagram: @nehameharde
The memories return,
Like the reel of an old movie,
Depicting scenes of where we once roamed,
And who we once were.
I hear your voice calling,
Like the whistle of the wind through branches.
Hello?
Are you still there?
Do you still remember me?
Instagram: @lostincloudysky
Their lives spread along tables like scenes from a movie.
Their sadness was wept at and their joyful moments elicited the most joyous smiles and laughter to the audience.
They lived for others.
Life, for them, felt stuck in an image as if the camera had trapped their souls whole.
The monochromatic lines of the film strip lacked the colour they desperately searched for.
A meaning and purpose to the strip of film they dedicated their lives to
Instagram: @tahinawrites
Goddesses Concertina Artists’ Book (2006) by Purnima Ruanglertbutr
Accordion Content
She is awake
Risen from a million carcasses
Of evil at its most horrific
They call her the wildfire empress
As flames flutter in her drapes
Widening her cobalt eyes
As the world dooms itself by the second
They dread her creasing brows
Such is the glimpse of rage
I feel her power surging through me
As the beats course my nerves
As my locks duel with the winds
As I swirl in crimson
I am awaken
I am Durga!
Instagram: @nehameharde
My endurance for pain can be seen by the Red in my eyes,
As the blood flows through my heavy thighs.
Besides all the distasteful reprimands,
I took care of their brittle ego,as the SHAKHA POLAS are still intact in my hands.
The White in it, is the guardian of my soul’s serenity,
The twirling Red, is the corroboration of my intent’s purity,
Yes, it’s the very LAAL PAAR which embraces me like a blessing and holds my falling pieces with Dignity.
It could be dusk of my life, yet I stand tall with this dusky skin,
this horrendous parturition incessantly tearing me apart from limb to limb.
Ocean has gone all bloody as I started to drown,
Carrying my child here, as my Ivory Crown.
May be in another life, I would prosper more,
Or maybe my fate will again end me here on this very shore.
Instagram: @essence_of_life_in_lil_things
I lean into the camera, my third eye
observing light,
noticing the Herculean ant, the moth, the rose
looking up at the panorama,
the layers of mountains,
foreground – sea foam,
thin thread, a barely visible horizon line
taking in the hidden wonders
existing in the seemingly mundane
others step into the lens
people I pray for, kiss before going to bed
other times
people in streets, who’s name I’ll never know – the old man pushing a cart, women holding on to their children or scarves
time stands still,
silent
what exists is
the simple poetry of the unseen
and
the outward, inward gaze
of the hopeful,
peacefully connected,
human
I aim to be
with shutter,
heart open
I begin to truly see
Instagram: @poeticlightoptics
Muses in the Sun Concertina Artists’ Book (2006) by Purnima Ruanglertbutr
Accordion Content
The scars and bruises
That once bled through the
backstabs
Were now transformed
Into her wings of immortal strength.
She had closed the gates
To her past pains,
For her eyes aimed
At the soaring flight ahead.
Instagram: @poetscreed
Aspired for surrealism
Reality didn’t define her
She was unsettling at core
Wanted to ask questions
Demanding to explore
How could they capture her
For she was wrapped in nature
Free at the very first sight
Her weapon was her soul
She spoke of things unheard
Visualise beyond ordinary
Travelling between worlds
Her imaginations made her
home
Instagram: @spilling_perspectives
Don’t be scared my dear child,
You are not lost in the wild,
Uncertainty lingers in the distant,
Don’t you be hesitant,
A little rest is what this is,
Rejuvenating your tired wings,
To your highest self you will soar,
Where freedom awaits your
yearning soul.
Instagram: @traverse_feelings
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