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Review Essay – Half Other by Peter Wallis
Nicola Healey reads the new poetry collection by Peter Wallis: Half Other, ‘a reminder of the significance of lateral relations in our lives’ whole’. ‘I was not born alone’: Twinhood and Illness Peter Wallis’s first full collection, Half Other, takes inspiration from his life as a twin, focusing on the lengthy ill health and hospital…
Nicola Healey
New Poets Collective – Quick Course Guide
In addition to our Summer programme this year, we are running a series of exciting courses tutored by fresh voices from The New Poets Collective. Have a look at the below quick guide to this fantastic line up and make sure you book your place quickly to avoid disappointment! In-Person Courses Poems as Constellations with…
Poetry School
Dear Rwanda: Creating a Poetry Souvenir
Here’s Isy Mead on her upcoming course, Poetry Souvenirs, keepsakes from over there; capturing the foreign without the fake. Rwanda, or ‘The Land of a Thousand Hills’, has a beauty beyond imagining. It is characterised by ubiquitous hillside terraces and spreading banana groves, by stunning, bright-green tea-fields to the south, and green and gold safari…
Isabella Mead
Summer 2024 – Quick Course Guide
Our Summer Term is now live and we’ve got a whole host of brilliant tutors and poetry courses lined up, so be sure to book promptly to avoid disappointment. Below is our handy Quick Course Guide, where you’ll find everything you’ll need to know. Online Courses INTERACTIVE Our classic 10-week online poetry courses with Live…
Poetry School
Wilder Swimming – Blog by Penny Boxall on ‘Tales from the Wetlands’
A blog by Penny Boxall on her upcoming course ‘Tales from the Wetlands Studio’ The first time I went to Estonia, I was surprised at the extent to which tales and folklore are woven into the landscape there. Friends told me you must not sit on the sandy beach until the first thunderstorm of the…
Penny Boxall
The Freedom of Writing
Michal Kamil Piotrowski on his course: ‘A Kaleidoscope of Forms: Innovative Poetry in the 21st Century’ Hello! In this post I will write a bit about experimental poetry. But first – what makes poetry experimental or innovative? In my opinion, the most important aspect is that, unlike traditional poetry, it concentrates on the future, it…
Michał Kamil Piotrowski
Rebecca Levi on ‘The stars of Chile for you (Las estrellas de Chile para ti)’: Transreading 5 Chilean Women Poets
Here’s Rebecca Levi on her upcoming course, ‘The stars of Chile for you (Las estrellas de Chile para ti)’: Transreading 5 Chilean Women Poets‘ December, 2018. Santiago, Chile. My friend’s kitchen. It was an old house with an inner courtyard, home to three, sometimes five women, plus a cat (female, obviously). A soft house, as if…
Rebecca Levi
Identity Poetics: A Century of Englishness
Christopher Madden reads the latest anthology edited by John Greening and Kevin Gardner, and the new poetry collection by Aaron Kent. Contraflow: Lines of Englishness 1922-2022, Ed. John Greening & Kevin Gardner Every anthology poses two fundamental questions: ‘Why this?’, and ‘Why now?’ For John Greening and Kevin Gardner, the editors of Contraflow: Lines of…
Christopher Madden
Blog on our course ‘Making Poetry Happen: Poetry Performance by Women & Gender Nonconforming Artists’
Iris Columb on her forthcoming course ‘Making Poetry Happen: Poetry Performance by Women & Gender Nonconforming Artists’, beginning Thursday 25 January 2024. The Risk of Liveness I attended my first poetry night, by chance, in 2014. It was through watching people share their words with a room full of friends and strangers that I really…
Iris Colomb
Abigail Parry – T.S. Eliot Writers’ Notes
Welcome to our T.S. Eliot Prize 2023 Writers’ Notes. This year, alongside the usual Readers’ Notes, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Poetry School are collaborating on a set of Writers’ Notes for the shortlisted collections. These are educational resources for poets looking to develop their practice and learn from some of contemporary poetry’s most exciting and accomplished…
Poetry School
Jane Clarke – T.S. Eliot Writers’ Notes
Welcome to our T.S. Eliot Prize 2023 Writers’ Notes. This year, alongside the usual Readers’ Notes, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Poetry School are collaborating on a set of Writers’ Notes for the shortlisted collections. These are educational resources for poets looking to develop their practice and learn from some of contemporary poetry’s most exciting and accomplished…
Poetry School
A “Cento Sonnet” written by Mary Dickins on Jacqueline Saphra’s ‘Creative Constraint’.
We are delighted to be publishing this piece of poetry collage, from the Autumn 2023 term of Jacqueline Saphra’s course Creative Constraint. In a group exercise this term, each of Jacqueline’s fourteen students shared one line of a sonnet to develop for homework. Mary has then fashioned all of these one line prompts into a…
Poetry School
Blog on our Climate Crisis Poetry Course ‘Burning Gaze: Revisiting the Romantics During Global Heating.’
Here’s Glyn Edwards on his upcoming course, Burning Gaze: Revisiting the Romantics During Global Heating, exploring romanticism and climate crisis poetry. ‘Nearly Daffodils’: BBC6, English Teacher(s), Wordsworth, and Adrian Henri BBC 6 Music has three playlists; the selection of songs appear on rotation through the day. Sometimes, a song that received intermittent radio play months…
Glyn Edwards
Joe Carrick-Varty – T.S. Eliot Prize Writers’ Notes
Welcome to our T.S. Eliot Prize 2023 Writers’ Notes. This year, alongside the usual Readers’ Notes, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Poetry School are collaborating on a set of Writers’ Notes for the shortlisted collections. These are educational resources for poets looking to develop their practice and learn from some of contemporary poetry’s most exciting and accomplished…
Poetry School Jason Allen-Paisant – T.S. Eliot Writers’ Notes
Welcome to our T.S. Eliot Prize 2023 Writers’ Notes. This year, alongside the usual Readers’ Notes, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Poetry School are collaborating on a set of Writers’ Notes for the shortlisted collections. These are educational resources for poets looking to develop their practice and learn from some of contemporary poetry’s most exciting and accomplished…
Poetry School
Now I Have a Poem, HO-HO-HO
Chrissy Williams on her forthcoming festive one-day poetry workshop, ‘Yippee-Ki-Yay: Writing Poems Inspired by DIE HARD’. Ah, Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year, a time for sharing warm fires, hastily wrapped gifts, and generational discord. Like many, I gravitate towards Die Hard at Christmas: a film about family and violent resolution with all…
Poetry School
Poetry School x TLC Free Reads Scheme 2023-24
Looking to develop your writing under the guidance of a published poet? Poetry School is delighted to be partnering with The Literary Consultancy in offering 1 poet a free Mentoring place from February 2024. Find out how to apply below! This year, we’re excited to be joining the TLC Arts Council England Free Reads Scheme,…
Poetry School
Kit Fan – T.S. Eliot Writers’ Notes
Welcome to our T.S. Eliot Prize 2023 Writers’ Notes. This year, alongside the usual Readers’ Notes, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Poetry School are collaborating on a set of Writers’ Notes for the shortlisted collections. These are educational resources for poets looking to develop their practice and learn from some of contemporary poetry’s most exciting and accomplished…
Poetry School
Fran Lock – T.S. Eliot Prize Writers’ Notes
Welcome to our T.S. Eliot Prize 2023 Writers’ Notes. This year, alongside the usual Readers’ Notes, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Poetry School are collaborating on a set of Writers’ Notes for the shortlisted collections. These are educational resources for poets looking to develop their practice and learn from some of contemporary poetry’s most exciting and accomplished…
Poetry School
Spring 2024 – Quick Course Guide
Our Spring Term is now live and we’ve got a whole host of brilliant tutors and poetry courses lined up, so be sure to book promptly to avoid disappointment. Below is our handy Quick Course Guide, where you’ll find everything you’ll need to know. Online Courses INTERACTIVE Our classic 10-week online poetry courses with Live…
Poetry School
Review: Standing in the Forest of Being Alive by Katie Farris
Stephanie Sy-Quia reads the new poetry collection by Katie Farris and discovers a message of hope and perseverance. Katie Farris’s second collection revolves around treatment for breast cancer, with the mastectomy as the great before and after – a dividing line along which most of the collection falls. Other moments of magnitude are the Capitol…
Stephanie Sy-Quia
‘What are we supposed to use, harsh language?’
Chrissy Williams on using the movie ALIENS to create her one-day poetry workshop, Short Controlled Bursts. When poets, myself included, turn to cinema for inspiration, it’s often to complex films with a philosophical bent which are crafted with deliberately poetic tools; not machine guns, armored cars, and aliens who burst through the chests of their…
Chrissy Williams
Momtaza Mehri – How I Did It ‘A Few Facts We Hesitantly Know to Be Somewhat True’
Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2023 ‘How I Did It’ series. This year we asked the poets shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection to write about the inspiration behind their collection. Here’s Momtaza Mehri on what inspired her to write Bad Diaspora Poems. This was one of a series of poems I…
Momtaza Mehri
HOW I DID IT – Zena Edwards ‘HUMAN: THIS EMBODIED KNOWLEDGE’
Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2023 ‘How I Did It’ series. This year we asked the poets shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (Performed) to write about the inspiration behind their poem. Here’s Zena Edwards on what inspired her to write ‘Human : This Embodied Knowledge’. This piece has always wanted to…
Zena Edwards
Eric Yip – How I Did It ‘Fricatives’
Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2023 ‘How I Did It’ series. This year we asked the poets shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (Written) to write about the inspiration behind their poem. Here’s Eric Yip on what inspired him to write ‘Frictatives.’ Thinking about a poem after having written it feels like…
Eric Yip