Tell Me About a Complicated Man: Transreading the Odyssey

Re-imagine Homer's cast of Olympians, sea-monsters, Lotus Eaters, and mere humans with Emily Wilson’s ground-breaking translation.

The Odyssey has inspired generations of poets, artists and filmmakers. On this course we will be reading highlights from Emily Wilson’s ground-breaking translation of Homer’s epic poem, as we create our own versions of the story’s most exciting landscapes and scenes: the island of Calypso, the cave of the Cyclops, and Mount Olympus, among other worlds. During the course, we will follow the different journeys taking place: from Mount Olympus to Ithaca, from the world of the living towards the Underworld, from Ithaca to Pylos and Sparta, and, above all, Odysseus’ 10-year journey from Troy towards home.

In each session we will consider various writing forms and techniques, drawing on key highlights and scenes from the Odyssey. In some of the sessions, we will experiment with creating different points of views and dramatic monologues in order to unravel the complex set of characters – be they gods or mortals. We will explore the use of dialogue in our poetry and learn how to evoke drama and tension between the protagonists: Odysseus and the goddess Athena, Telemachus and Penelope, and Hermes and Calypso, among others. In other sessions, we will focus on bringing specific scenes to life, paying careful attention to visual and sonic images, as well as images that evoke tangible sensations in our poems. Finally, we will test what happens to some characters when we shift them across time and space. Could the journey into the Underworld take place on the London underground? Could Calypso work in the theatre? Could Ithaca function on a film set?

In the introduction to her translation, Emily Wilson writes: ‘The Odyssey puts us into a world that is a peculiar mixture of the strange and the familiar. The tension between strangeness and familiarity is in fact the poem’s central subject’. During the course we will navigate this tension in our poetry, as we travel the ever-fascinating universe of Homer, where gods and mortals – Olympians, sea-monsters, Lotus Eaters, and mere humans – walk the same earth.

5 fortnightly sessions over 10 weeks, starting 1 October 2026. No live chats. Suitable for 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: @roman-odintsov

About Stav Poleg View Profile

Stav Poleg is the author of the poetry collections THE BANQUET (shortlisted for the PEN Heaney Prize 2025) and THE CITY (shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Poetry Prize for First Collection 2023), both books published by Carcanet Press. Her poetry has appeared on both sides of the Atlantic, in The New Yorker, Poetry Daily, Poetry London, Poetry Ireland Review, PN Review and elsewhere. Her work is featured in leading anthologies, including A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker (Knopf, 2025), The Forward Book of Poetry (Faber, 2024), and New Poetries VIII (Carcanet, 2021). Her graphic-novel installation, ‘Dear Penelope: Variations on an August Morning’, created with artist Laura Gressani, was acquired by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Her theatre work was read at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, and the Shunt Vaults, London, and most recently at Kettle’s Yard gallery, Cambridge. She serves on the editorial board of Magma Poetry, where she co-edited recent issues linking poetry with the worlds of Film, Physics, and Architecture.

"Excellent course. Would attend one by the same tutor again."

- Survey Response on Stav Poleg's Summer 2026 course

The Poetry School