Blog
All of our Blog Posts
‘Mrs Arnolfini’s interior’
My husband’s seville oranges are ripening on the window ledge; he punctures and sucks at them before flinging the pith to the pigs. When he’s not trading silk, he likes to paint still lives, nature morte. I know this child’s another phantom. I gather my dress under my ribs, rest a hand where its head…
Rachael Matthews
Adventures in the Blind Field: An Interview with Sally Flint
An Interview with Sally Flint
“The art of really looking intrigues me – especially how poets interpret, use and move beyond what they see“
James Trevelyan (Poetry School)
A Tale from the World City: David Tait
“Leaving there and proceeding for three days toward the east, you will reach Diomira, a city with sixty silver domes, bronze statues of all the gods, streets paved with lead, a crystal theatre, a golden cock that crows each morning on a tower. All these beauties will already be familiar to the visitor, who has…
David Tait
How I Did It: Poem in Which…
In darker periods, I spend far too many hours Wikipedia-hopping: clicking from link to link and half-learning all sorts of extraordinary things. I find Wikipedia a real horde of things to write about and poems to find. My favourite articles are the list pages, and the best of these (and a good portal to further…
Harry Josephine Giles
Off the Page: An Interview with Niall O’Sullivan
An Interview with Niall O'Sullivan
“The materiality of the poem manifesting as sound within a physical and social environment can often pop the idealistic bubble that the poem was composed within.”
Poetry School
Interview with the Primers Volume One poets: Lucy Ingrams, Katie Griffiths, Geraldine Clarkson and Maureen Cullen
An Interview with Primers Winners
“If you’re hesitating between sending poems to Primers or another competition, send your very best to Primers. You won’t regret it!” – Geraldine Clarkson, Primers Volume One Poet.
Poetry School
Shey Hargreaves reads ‘Death at Sea’ and ‘Junior Doctors’
Shey Hargreaves, our former Digital Poet-in-Residence with 1215.today, reads two of the poems written during her residency. The poems are also hosted over on the 1215.today site. Junior Doctors is “an homage to all those toiling long, red-eyed hours in the fluorescent throb of hospital corridor”. You can read Shey’s blog post and poem about the…
Ali Lewis
Site-Seeing: An Interview with Holly Corfield Carr
An Interview with Holly Corfield Carr
“Writing poems for particular places might change the way we write, but finding places to write particular poems changes the way we move through the world”
James Trevelyan (Poetry School)
The Radiance of Materials: An Interview with Fawzia Kane
An Interview with Fawzia Kane
In a sense, considering the raw material folds time back in on itself, holds it in suspension: what can this substance become?
Poetry School
‘Sea Between Us’
The sea turns its beautiful face away, turns its lily-face to the sun. The sea gets cat-close, its muscles ripple under fur as it stalks off alone. In the sea-mirror waves are clouds, whale moon, spaceships polystyrene islands of debris. In the sea-mirror your hand is fairground-strange. The sea is a graffiti artist, writes huge…
Anna Kisby
How I Did It: ‘Interlude’
This poem was the first poem I tried to write after a period of about three years during which I didn’t write at all. During this time, I was making some significant discoveries about my family, my mother and myself, unpicking the deep legacies of intergenerational trauma. One day, after work, I took myself to…
Ruby Robinson
Hands On Zines: An Interview with Cherry Styles
An Interview with Cherry Styles
For me, the definition has to do with intent. Zines are not made for profit, it’s all about community, support and a desire to share the good stuff.
Ali Lewis
Ryan Van Winkle’s Blues Gallery
This Autumn, we introduce a new course format on CAMPUS: the Poetry Studio. These will be three-week intensive writing sessions, with inspirational challenges designed for you to get as many poems on the page as possible. We’ve called on our poetry podcaster extraordinaire, Ryan Van Winkle, to take charge of the first of these in September…
James Trevelyan (Poetry School)
How to Put on a Poetry Reading
We get a lot of messages from our students asking us how to organise a poetry reading, so we’ve gathered all of our favourite pointers and suggestions into this handy guide. Anything we’ve missed? Let us know your top gig tips in the comments. First Find Your Venue · How many people do you want to invite to…
Andrew Parkes (Poetry School)
The Stanza: Why do poems have them?
I have a fair few books about writing poetry on my shelves, some more helpful and inspiring than others. They do seem to have one thing in common, though: while they spend plenty of time talking about the poetic line, they have nothing much to say about the stanza. They may discuss set forms of…
David Clarke
Interview with Star, our Work Experience Student!
An Interview with Star
Poetry has been a way for me to break out of my shell, become something more than myself.
Ali Lewis
How I Did It: ‘The Survivors’
I began the poems in Disko Bay during a midwinter residency at Upernavik Museum in Greenland. My brief was to write about the history of the island and its present-day community but I hoped to record some observations on the wider Arctic environment too. However, the weather conditions were so extreme I couldn’t walk much…
Nancy Campbell
How I Did It: ‘Upstairs’
‘Upstairs’ is the pivotal poem in my collection Distance. Six years ago, illness forced my mother to live, sleep and eat in the downstairs part of the house. This was the inspiration for ‘Upstairs’. My original intention was to highlight how, in old age, we slowly lose the world we created. But to write it…
Ron Carey
The Autumn 2016 Programme – in two lines or less!
Everyone likes a bite-sized chunk, right? Well here is a barrel full of them as we try to introduce our Autumn 2016 course programe in two lines or less… Three-Term courses The Construction of the Poem with Tim Dooley, Judy Brown, Matthew Caley, Claire Crowther and Martyn Crucefix: A 30-week course on the history…
Poetry School Open for Entries – Primers Volume 2: a Mentoring and Publication Scheme
The Poetry School and Nine Arches Press are delighted to announce the arrival of Primers Volume 2, the second year of an annual scheme which creates a unique opportunity for talented poets to find publication and receive a programme of supportive feedback, mentoring and promotion. The scheme will select three poets whose work will feature…
Poetry School
Call for Thank You Poems
The Poetry School is about to set our illustrator to work on some new print. We’re going to make thank you cards to send to partners, donors and collaborators who work with us. Our brochures are illustrated by Margaux Carpentier, and her images are always inspired by Poetry School students’ poems. Have you got, or…
Poetry School
‘Seashell Sound Recordist’
Pick up any Jack-knife Clam, Triton, a Sharks Eye or Pearwhelk. Place any Conch to your ear and you will hear my work. Have you ever heard the Sea Biscuit, the Thick Lucine or the Kitten’s Paw? Because I have travelled from sandbank to coastline and shore to shore, passed through raging squalls, over calm…
Poetry School
Primers Volume II Announcement
A bright yellow poetry book is doing the rounds, perhaps you’ve caught a flash. It’s Primers Volume 1, the fruit of a collaboration between the Poetry School and Nine Arches Press designed to identify, mentor and publish talented poets. Geraldine Clarkson, Maureen Cullen, Katie Griffiths and Lucy Ingram are the Primers Vol 1 writers, their…
Ali Lewis
‘Fragrance of roses’
They left the heat of Uganda deep into the night on Alitalia flight 204. Their parents waved, silent on the tarmac. The smell of kerosene gave way to the fragrance of roses on Raihana’s handkerchief. She and Fahima already had a grip on Britain, what with Jane Eyre, The Avengers, Robin Hood. Greeted by thrashing…
Poetry School
Poetry School / Poetry in Aldeburgh Paid Residency Opportunity!
Get your buckets and spades, bikinis and biros ready – here’s news of a paid poetry residency by the beach! The Poetry School and Poetry in Aldeburgh have a joint offer to make: an opportunity for a festival-focused poet in residence. While the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival organised by The Poetry Trust has a breather and…
Poetry School