Around the Table: Writing about Food & Family
Explore the poetic connections between food, family, love, and legacy.
* This course will take place on the video-conferencing platform ZOOM *
This course will investigate how meals, rituals, and shared experiences contribute to our personal and collective memories and identities. Through poem discussions and creative writing, we will explore how our table becomes a space for storytelling and continuation. By the end of the series, we will have developed a set of poems that engage with how food has shaped our narratives and legacies.
Exploring the Role of Food in Personal and Cultural Identity
Participants will reflect on family meals, holiday practices, and homemade dishes and their special meaning. We will explore how food represents home, heritage, and connection through guided writing prompts and discussions of poems by Zilka Joseph, Ada Limon, R. A. Villanueva, and more.
Food as a source for Physical and Emotional Nourishment
In this session, we will reflect on how meals provide sustenance, comfort, and care and discuss their connection to moments of connection and healing. Drawing on examples from Li-Young Lee, Marjorie Evasco, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and others, we’ll explore how food is fuel for the body and a way of showing love, compassion, and support. We will craft poems that explore nourishing the spirit and providing comfort during times of joy or sorrow.
Food as a Gateway to Memory, Lore, and Legacy
In the final session, we will explore how food functions as a gateway to memory and lore, and the present and the future, looking at poems by John Burnside, Liz Berry, Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, and more. We will write poems that connect food with personal and family history and discuss how it plays a role in preserving and continuing family legacies and traditions. By reflecting on food as a catalyst for storytelling, we will craft poems that capture the power of food to connect us to the past, the present, and the future.
Come and celebrate the multifaceted role of food in shaping our lives and legacies.
3 fortnightly Zoom sessions on Thursdays, 7–9pm (BST), starts 5 June 2025. To apply for a concession rate, please send relevant documentation showing your eligibility for one of our concessions to [email protected]. Conditions of eligibility are detailed here. More information about how our Video Courses work can be found on the Video Courses page. If you have any questions or wish to be added to the waiting list of a sold-out course, please email [email protected].
Image credit: @DDP
About romalyn ante 
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Romalyn Ante FRSL is a Filipino-British poet, author, and editor.
She was born and bred in Lipa, Philippines and migrated to the UK when she was sixteen. Her debut collection, Antiemetic for Homesickness (Chatto, 2020), was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her second collection, AGIMAT (Chatto, 2024), was Poetry Book Society Recommendation and The Observer Poetry Book of the Month.
"It's really useful being given very concrete prompts and examples of poetic technique, as well as deadlines for submission. It helps me find a way to work more flexibly and in ways I might not have considered otherwise."
Nothing to Write About? Breaking Writers’ Block
Sensorial Witnessing: An Exploration of Voice, Reading, Performance
Poems After Poems: Writing Ars Poetica