Freedom in Form: Creativity, Control, & Craft with Jacqueline Saphra

Mix up your writing and learn new skills and techniques with Jacqueline Saphra.

* This course will take place on the video-conferencing platform ZOOM *

Whatever else it maybe, a poem is a verbal artefact which must be as skilfully and solidly constructed as a table or a motorcycle
– WH Auden

Formal constraints can enable and enhance your creative impulses, driving your poetry into exciting and unfamiliar territories. In this three-term course which includes both writing exercises and feedback, you’ll work with a supportive peer group to experiment with different poetic modes and learn to develop your writing through experimentation and close reading.

Each week, you’ll read inspiring poems as jumping off points to explore both received and open forms and be encouraged to take risks, extending your poetic range through guided writing exercises, generating new poems, and honing your poetic skills. Over each term we’ll explore how craft, technique and constraint can help you expand your poetic toolkit so you can find fresh energy, build confidence and even surprise yourself.

10 weekly Zoom sessions on Mondays, 6.45–8.45pm (BST), starts 6 Oct 2025.

Concessions & Accessibility

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. If you have any questions or wish to be added to the waiting list of a sold-out course, please email [email protected].

What to Expect

Please check the left hand side of this page for information on how this course works in practice, under the heading ‘Course Style‘. If you’re unsure as to what any of the terms there mean, or if this course is a good fit for you, please visit our What to Expect page which includes some further information on how our courses function.

Image credit: @girlwithredhat

About Jacqueline Saphra View Profile

Jacqueline Saphra is a poet, playwright, teacher, and activist. She is the author of nine plays, four chapbooks, and five poetry collections. Her second collection, All My Mad Mothers was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and her fifth, Velvel’s Violin, a Poetry Book Society recommendation and a Poetry Book of the Month Radio 4 Extra, was out from Nine Arches Press in July 2023. Jacqueline is a founder member of Poets for the Planet.

"Always a fun and lively session. I began during lockdown when feeling cut off from the poetry and writing scene. It was a lifesaver at the time and still valuable."

- Spring 2025 Survey Response

The Poetry School