Poetic Portraits: Capturing Someone in So Many Words
Bring your subjects to live with poetry of close attention and individual focus.
At their best, a pen portrait can be as vivid and insightful as any painting. During this course, we’ll learn how to get the most out of writing about a single individual – how to make them seem alive and real, and how to make them last in the imagination. The course will focus on the technical aspects that allow poems their unique way of creating a portrait. We’ll look at how the form borrows techniques and styles from other genres (painting and the novel, for instance) and how to get the most out of the poem’s own substantial possibilities.
During the course we’ll explore different approaches to capturing the essence of a character in verse – whether a famous historical figure or a close family member. Every fortnight we will investigate how poets as various as John Clare, Gottfried Benn, Elizabeth Bishop, Gwendolyn Brooks, Jane Yeh, and Marianne Moore have tackled the portrait poem. The course will be broken into five sessions, where we will look at five key types of poetic portraiture: the historical figure; the family snapshot; the literary character; the stranger, and the self-portrait.
The course will offer a range of in-depth analysis of classic examples and we will use these to draw out techniques which participants will apply in their own work as they tackle the fortnightly assignments. Each assignment will offer tips and pointers from the examples we’ve studied in that week’s analysis. Along the way, we’ll look at how description and emotional effect are formally interwoven and learn how best to create an implicit context so the reader can be surprised by details that enliven the portraits.
By the end of the course, participants will have produced five new poems on a range of figures and gained confidence in how to approach different types of writing, as well as experimenting with techniques to help them approach new poems in different styles. Through feedback, from the tutor and the other students, participants will be encouraged to challenge and explore their writing orthodoxies and create a whole new gallery of poems.
5 fortnightly sessions over 10 weeks, starting 20 January 2025. No live chats. Suitable for UK & International students.
Concessions & Accessibility
To apply for a concessionary rate, please send relevant documentation showing your eligibility for one of our concessions to [email protected]; conditions of eligibility are detailed here. If you have any questions, wish to be added to the waiting list of a sold-out course, or require any form of adjustment to access our courses, please email [email protected]. For more information visit our Online Courses page.
Image credit: @suzyhazelwood
About Edward Doegar 
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Edward Doegar is a poet and editor based in London. He was the commissioning editor for the Poetry Translation Centre between 2019 and 2022 and is a consulting editor at The Rialto. His works include For Now (clinic; 22017), Adaptation (Kelder Press; 2022), a collaboration with the artist Shakeeb Abu Hamdan, and, most recently, sonnets (Broken Sleep Press; 2024).
"Since enrolling in my first Poetry School course, I have begun creating more frequently and considering my work with a more attentive eye. I appreciate the community of writers that gather in each course."
Hymns to Life: Poetry, Documentary, & Time
Interrogating Influence: Traditions in Poetry
Darkness into Light – Poetry for the Waxing Year