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Review: ‘The Number Poems’ by Matthew Welton
The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight. John Berger, Ways of Seeing The Book of Numbers is like an artist’s sketch…
Heidi Williamson
‘Trixie Might: No More Baristas’
There are millions of baristas in rumbo countries who would love to hobble in fluidness. Sure, the best baristas love countries – BUT where there is typhotoxin / the right way to help is not. Rumbo + typhotoxin = hobble – help. Not millions… MILLIONS! The nippy and squealing effect of high steam is close…
Shauna Robertson
Review: ‘Moon For Sale’ by Richard Price
Moon for Sale does not pander to, or patronise, its reader and often reading the poems you become aware you are in the presence of a mind working much more quickly and sharply than your own. If, like me, vast swathes of your reading diet consists of fairly orthodox lyrical poetry, then it might serve…
Richie McCaffery
Battle of the Somme Poetry Residency Performance
A few months ago we invited applications for a collaboration opportunity with Simon Barraclough to commemorate the Battle of the Somme. The ten poets selected have been busy writing poems and will perform them at a special event in London on Saturday 4 February. This is our contribution to the UK-wide cultural commemorations of the…
Poetry School
‘Witness’
I am trying to hear the cow’s story, but it is thin and acrid as the stream of piss and fear from the back of a cattle truck pitching between hedges on the abattoir road. I am trying to hear the cow’s story, but all I have seen with my own eyes is the cluster…
Caroline Harris
‘The Cutter’
Anyone bold enough can find the booth in Ho Ping Lane, twin shutters opened out like wings heart strung with keys and locks of every kind, tinkling promises in the sultry wind. Deep inside the master cutter squats, squints as he selects a blank to suit your purpose. He spins his wheel, its sharp teeth…
Judith Rawnsley
The Long Read: Reflections on a Poetry in Aldeburgh Residency
In Autumn 2016 we advertised for applications for Poet in Residence at the inaugural Poetry in Aldeburgh Festival. Ben Rogers was subsequently put into position and undertook a month full of research, interviews, writing prompts and poems. We asked him to provide his reflections on this mammoth task in the hope it might prove useful to…
BenRogers
‘Briony Grist: Let’s be clear about the challenges we face with ermits.’
First and foremost, we should be concerned about ermits obtaining cilicious books – underperforming mystics must improve or they will merit cryogenic sealing – no one benefits from hirsute heresies. Look, until such day as they can safely be released into runnels, their otherness and thick fur folios must be cauterised, curried, and caked in…
Richard Stillman
Melting identities: does it matter where you are from?
There is no doubt about it: the world is changing, and changing quickly. As people travel from one place to another to work or live, they create increasingly multicultural communities where different ideas, customs and languages interact, combine and clash. In London, for example, the streets are filled with the cadences of different dialects as people…
Jennifer Wong
‘To the wild boar swimming in Victoria Harbour’
My call to you the outlaw who got your way to play in our water, in front of so many eyes, without paying taxes or having sweated your butt off for a job, The rogue who tusked down rules of traffic, burst through fences, skirted CCTV and mobile snapshots just to cool the bites of…
Florence Ng
Poetry School Announced as Headline Partner for Poetry in Aldeburgh
As guests at last year’s inaugural Poetry in Aldeburgh Festival, the Poetry School hosted residencies, readings and competitions. Ben Rogers, who was our Festival Poet in Residence, describes his highlights here. We are very pleased to announce that we’ll be back for the 2017 Festival – this time as Headline partners. Make a diary note…
Poetry School
‘Me, Myself and (Not) I’: An Interview with Saradha Soobrayen
Ahead of her Spring Term course ‘Me, Myself and (Not) I‘, we caught up with poet Saradha Soobrayen. AL: Hi Saradha. Your new course with us is called ‘Me, Myself and (Not) I’. Could you tell us what prompted the ideas for the course? SS: Last year I was working on the Poetry Library’s Open…
Ali Lewis
Mixed Borders: Poet in Residence Training – Apply Now!
Lover of flowers and/or vegetables? Want some poet-in-residence training? Read on, we have an opportunity for you! For the last two years, the Poetry School and London Parks and Gardens Trust have teamed up for a poet-in-residence training scheme centred on London’s Gardens. We call the scheme ‘Mixed Borders’. “I felt like the training greatly…
Ali Lewis
Pattern is not an algorithm: on poetry and pattern
Pattern in poetry is not just an algorithm at work, i.e., ‘the poem that writes itself’. In fact, it might be said that anything that writes itself, whether it be a moral code, a way of handling people, an approach of giving a percentage of income to charity, is bound for trouble. We live in…
Ira Lightman
To Sea in a Sieve: The Joy of Writing Children’s Poetry
Whenever I talk about children’s poetry, I end up using the word ‘joy’. Multiple times. Sometimes I throw in a ‘delight’ or two as well. I’ll do that here, too, because it’s the key point I want to get across: it is a total joy to read, write and perform children’s poetry, and one I…
Rachel Piercey
Review: ‘The Met Office Advises Caution’ by Rebecca Watts
Reading Rebecca Watts’ first collection, I’m reminded of a phrase by D. M. Black who, talking about the Scottish poet Robert Garioch, advised readers to be careful in approaching his work, because beneath the quiet exterior ‘passions burn’. The same can be said of Watts’ initially disarming and unassuming poems that soon give way to…
Richie McCaffery
The Poetry School Books of the Year 2016
Although not, by popular consensus, a brilliant year generally, 2016 has been a good year for poetry: sales of poetry books topped £10m for the first time, a poet – Warsan Shire – featured on Beyonce’s latest album, Penguin reopened its poetry list, and, for the second year in a row, the Forward Prizes were…
Ali Lewis
Give It To ‘Em Straight: An Interview with Alex MacDonald
Alex MacDonald, Eric Gregory Award-winning poet and co-editor at poetry journal Poems in Which, will be running our Spring 2017 course Give It To ‘Em Straight. We caught up with him for a short chat about the course, and what he’s up to at the moment. Your upcoming course with us is called ‘Give It To ‘Em…
Andrew Parkes (Poetry School)
New North Poets Mentoring Scheme Open for Entries
This year, we are delighted to once again be partnering with New Writing North to offer mentoring and professional development to five new poets through the New North Poets Mentoring Scheme. Working closely with lead tutor Clare Pollard, participants will receive a year-long mentoring programme focussing on both the craft of writing and the professional skills…
Poetry School
Review: ‘The Fetch’ by Gregory Leadbetter
How do the dead function in poems? In Gregory Leadbetter’s quietly stunning debut The Fetch, the dead appear as echoes in the form of many ‘fetches’ – the apparition or double of a living person, usually an omen for impending death – that quietly haunt throughout. The collection’s title poem begins suitably with noises in…
John Challis
Review: ‘The Nine of Diamonds, Surroial Mordantless’ by MacGillivray
What do you do with three hundred years of Scottish history, a tarot deck and a battalion of European surrealist artists? If you’re MacGillivray, a multi-disciplinary artist exploring the Highland psyche, you make The Nine of Diamonds, Surroial Mordantless, her second collection, and first under the Bloodaxe imprint. Surroil Mordantless explores the legacy of ‘The…
Christie Williamson
‘Arcadia’
I’d like to say it’s for the coffee, sure. Greek stuff, the thick kind that collects in the cup, leaves a bitter-toffee residue. And theirs is pretty good, pretty strong. But it’s the staff, in their thirties, dark. I’ve studied the faces. Boy, are they slow. Unbelievably slow! Takes four of them to make mine…
Paul Stephenson
‘shadows of aphantasia’
my mind is blind unable to hold an image, a face, a place, I might devise an outline use words, describe a radiant smile have some recall but images cannot last they disappear into the breath of words – last night you were lit in a double shadow as if soul and spirit exist –…
Gill Cody
Haiku Rebellion Studio: Students’ Work
We are very proud to present below a small selection of work from students on our recent Haiku Rebellion Studio.
Andrew Parkes (Poetry School)
How I Did It – Michael Marks Edition – Richard Scott on ‘cover-boys’
If I am honest, I don’t really know how I did it, wrote cover-boys that is; but there’s something powerful about acknowledging the underlying mystery of poetry right from the get-go, what Whitman calls the ‘unseen hand’; that despite how much you learn and craft there is a subconscious ticking away beneath all the work…
Richard Scott