Occupations and Interruptions – Developing Poetry Workshops for Carers
In this special training session, explore the theories and practicalities of delivering poetry workshops for carers.
Are you a poet and do you have some lived experience of being a carer? Are you interested in helping other carers come together through poetry to help share their stories and develop a voice to describe their experiences? According to the NHS, many active carers do not think of themselves as carers, and this lack of recognition and self-recognition is a major barrier to accessing support. Poetry is a brilliant place to meet, find solidarity and find ways to develop that self-articulation.
Led by Dr Dinah Roe and Sarah Hesketh, the workshop leaders for carerspoetry.org, this special training session will explore the theories and practicalities of designing and delivering poetry writing workshops for carers. We’ll consider care itself as a creative practice. We’ll think about the unique pressures and barriers that carers might face in developing their creativity and how, as facilitators, we can work with and around these. We’ll be inspired by the work of poets such as Christina Rosetti, Sylvia Plath, Ada Limón, James Schuyler, Anne Carson and Brian Bilston, discussing sample lesson plans, and making sure we consider how you can care for yourself when working with vulnerable groups.
The course will be in two parts. Part 1 on Wednesday 1 July will consist of training, discussion and skills development sessions. Part 2 is an optional observed teaching practice and feedback with carers who have already participated in a Poetry by Carers workshop. This teaching practice, subject to successful completion of the Day 1 training, will offer the chance to test a sample lesson plan developed during the training day. Participants who complete both parts of the course will be paid a bursary of £120.
Part 1 – 1 Zoom session on Wednesday 1 July, 9.30am–3pm (BST) – Training and Skills Development
Part 2 – 2 Zoom sessions on Thursday 2 or Friday 3 July, up to 2 hours starting from 10am (BST) – Observed Teaching Practice Sessions.
About Sarah Hesketh Dinah Roe 
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Dinah Roe is Reader in English Literature at Oxford Brookes University, specialising in Pre-Raphaelitism and Victorian Poetry. She is currently editing Christina Rossetti’s Complete Poems for the Longman Annotated English Poets series, and working on a British Academy funded project examining the connections between Rossetti’s creativity and her work as a carer. Headshot attached.
Sarah Hesketh is a writer and Editor. Her books include Napoleon’s Travelling Bookshelf (Penned in the Margins, 2009), The Hard Word Box (Penned in the Margins, 2014), and The Emma Press Anthology of Age (Ed., 2015). Her most recent book, 2016, was published by CB Editions in spring 2025 and was a Guardian poetry book of the year. Her work has a focus on socially-engaged writing practices and she has been an Artist in Residence with Age Concern and The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. She is the workshop leader for the Poetry by Carers project and in 2022 she was awarded a Royal Society of Literature ‘Literature Matters’ award.
"I cannot live without writing poetry. Poetry School is such great asset to which everyone can access from almost anywhere. "