Manchester Buddhist Centre

Aryamati, an Order mem­ber from our centre has won the North West Libraries poetry prize

A pub­lished author, formerly known as Olga Kenyon, Aryamati explains that the win­ning poem is a son­net, inspired by an intriguing geo­lo­gical form­a­tion at Alderley Edge in Cheshire.

To the Edge

We take the train, one sand­wich, one poem each
and stomp, the silent phys­i­cist and me,
past foot­ballers’ man­sions, gnarled roots, car-park,
with a few walk­ers gaz­ing at empti­ness,
and trudge to the ver­ti­gin­ous edge.
We clam­ber over pre­his­toric boulders
to the sol­it­ary carved wiz­ard stone above
a real world of corn, brown — and green.
Our minds open out over the sheer drop,
track a bird soar­ing up into blue wind
and watch laws at work:
stages of flight, break­ing free.
Trees, corn, earth appear a kind of fall­ing.
Suddenly I’m no weight, just a point
of view…

Opening to our own creativity

Feeling inspired? Aryamati’s poetry group is open to new mem­bers — con­tact her via the Buddhist Centre recep­tion. They meet once a fort­night in the Centre’s lib­rary, Tuesdays 4.05 — 5.40, bring­ing a poem to work­shop, and a poem they love.

One of the Triratna Buddhist Community’s dis­tinct­ive fea­tures is our emphasis on the spir­itual value of the arts, and the Centre hosts many other friendly activ­it­ies to help you con­nect with your own cre­ativ­ity, most of them need­ing no pre­vi­ous experience.

Sharon Glasby’s day­time cre­ativ­ity group meets at the Centre on Tuesdays — again con­tact her via recep­tion — and over the sum­mer we also have a singing group and Bollywood dance classes.

Highlights from the events pro­gramme for the autumn include a cre­at­ive writ­ing work­shop from Wolf at the Door, and Adam Warne’s drum­ming work­shop.