New writing SEVEN DEADLY SINS Guest Editor KATE MOSSE introduces her pick of poetry and prose on the theme of sins The readers of Mslexia are a talented and impressively diverse group. The poems and stories submitted to ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’ competition often show great skill and control of the chosen form, as well as depth of feeling or understanding. Judging the competition has been an honour and a pleasure. Writing is a craft. Where that craft is most perfectly realised, in a poem, a short story or a novel, it transcends the ideas and language and the time and place that shaped it. It achieves resonance and, perhaps, permanence. In short, it becomes art. I was in Canada recently at a literary festival and I saw a demonstration of Inuit canoe building. The similarities with creative writing were striking – the careful construction of a strong but flexible skeleton; shaping the timbers and bark to the desired form; lashing the components tightly together with the same fibres of which the timbers are made; finishing and waterproofing the craft with attention to the tiniest detail. The canoe was shaped by experience and by the living materials that it was made from: the knot in the wood that could be pushed out to reveal a hole ready to take a twist of resinous bark; a branch in the form of a knee, as if grown on purpose to support a brace. Like the conversation overheard in the bank queue that is the key to unlocking your most stubborn, your most elusive, opaque character. As Enrique Jardiel Poncela said: La casualidad es la décima musa. (Chance is the tenth muse.) For the complete essay, and for Kate's full selection of poetry and prose on the theme of sins, read issue 28 • Subscribe! Read a poem chosen by Kate Mosse: Fear by River Wolton For more on KATE MOSSE, go to www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk
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