New Territories: An Intermediate-Advanced Workshop with Wayne Holloway-Smith [Spring 2026]

Bring your writing to the next level and explore contemporary poetry’s cutting-edge.

*This course is currently only open to priority students who attended in Autumn 2025.*

If you are a new student who did not attend this course last term, please email our team at [email protected] and we will contact you after the priority booking period is over on 20 November to let you know if there are any available spaces.

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

This developmental course is open to all intermediate and advanced writers, who want to expand the vocabulary of their practice. Drawing upon Wayne Holloway-Smith’s experience as a prize winning poet and the editor of the UK’s leading poetry magazine, The Poetry Review, you will build an understanding of the very contemporary work being produced by some of today’s leading practitioners.

Across the term, you will be invited to consider a range of fresh techniques and challenged to think in unexpected and creative ways. Through close reading and discussion of recently published work, and through the expert guidance of your tutor and peer feedback your work will be pushed into new territory.

The aim of this course is to create a generative and safe space to try new things, make mistakes, experiment, and, ultimately, enjoy the process.

10 weekly Zoom sessions on Tuesdays, 6.45–8.45pm (GMT), starts 20 January 2026.

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: USGS

About Wayne Holloway-Smith View Profile

Wayne Holloway-Smith has published two collections of poetry, Alarum (Bloodaxe 2017), a Poetry Book Society Wild Card Choice, and Love Minus Love (Bloodaxe 2020), shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. He won the National Poetry Competition in 2018. Additionally, his pocketbook, Beloved, in case you’ve been wondering was published by Donut Press in 2011; I CAN’T WAIT FOR THE WENDING, an experimental unbound book of poems, was published by Prototype in 2018; his latest work, Lobsters, was published by Makina Books in 2021. He is currently the editor for Poetry Review.

"I've been in a tricky place with my writing. The course has unlocked a path forward so that I can reconnect with my poetry and hopefully that'll lead to a few more poems making their way out into the world."

- Spring 2025 Survey Response

The Poetry School