Posts By: Simon Barraclough
How Cinema Can Improve Your Writing
In this series, we interview our tutors about poetry and its place in their world. These interviews will cover creative writing tips, excelling in a poetry workshop, building a literary career, and finding your poetic voice. Here’s Simon Barraclough on how cinema can inspire and improve your writing. Simon will be teaching Jaws at 50…
Simon Barraclough
Poetry Craft: My Favourite Poetic Device with Simon Barraclough
Simon Barraclough discusses his favourite poetic device.
Simon Barraclough
Paradise Lost: ‘An Express Elevator to Hell!’
Oh Milton, Milton, Milton: local boy born on Bread Street just off Cheapside; the ‘Lady of Christ’s’ College Cambridge; defender of regicide; pro-divorce pamphleteer; free-speech zealot; house guest of Galileo; blind visionary; dreamer of Paradise Lost, now buried alongside the Barbican’s fountains – how oft I think of thee. Forgive my windy oratory/Milton draws this…
Simon BarracloughProse Poets: ‘Of Gears’
I like poems that change gears, or change gear, if you prefer. I also like songs that change gear, like ‘I Heard Ramona Sing’ by Frank Black, which gives the gearbox a good work out before settling into the first verse. It seems to rev through four or five intros before finding its optimal…
Simon Barraclough
Samuel Beckett & Poetry
It was not enough to drag her into the world, now she must play the piano. —from ‘Embers’ I remember the first times I encountered Beowulf, Auden, Hughes, Plath, and many others, but I can’t remember the first time I came across Beckett’s work. Was it on the page, in the theatre, on the radio,…
Simon Barraclough