Making a Speech (Speech! Speech!) Studio

The speaker speaks; integrating the utterance for poetry that talks.

Speech and dialogue can offer poetry an immediate sense of life and character. But what are the different strategies available to poets when they want to introduce speech into their work? In this studio course we’ll consider our options and investigate a different strategy each week, looking at monologue, reported speech, dialogue, and the use of fragments. We’ll think about how prose writers and dramatists use dialogue and we’ll also investigate hybrid poetic approaches. Our example poems will be drawn from a range of sources, and include work by Elizabeth Bishop, Langston Hughes, Lorca, Jane Kenyon, Douglas Dunn, Emily Berry, Susannah Dickey, Raymond Antrobus and Kathryn Maris. Listen for the voices at work in the portfolio poems and follow a writing prompt to produce your own new poems which experiment with speech.

Studios are 4-week intensive courses. Reading material will be distributed before the course begins. There are no live chats so they are suitable for both UK & International students.

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: @paulglucaci

About Kathryn Simmonds View Profile

Kathryn Simmonds’s third collection, Scenes from Life on Earth, is published by Salt. Her poems have appeared in various publications including Poetry, The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Poetry Review, and The Irish Times and, along with her short stories, have been broadcast on BBC radio. Her first picture book, Be my Sunflower is published by Walker and her latest picture book is also published by Walker Books, Trouble at the Bug Hotel (illustrated by Tor Freeman). She lives in Norwich with her family and has run a number of courses for The Poetry School.

"Studying with the Poetry School has really benefitted my life as well as my writing, providing a space to discuss poetry which I would not have otherwise."

– Autumn 2025 Survey Response