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Meet the Digital Poet in Residence: Clare Shaw
Hi Clare! Tell us about your upcoming residency, ‘You took the words right out my mouth’. Clare: I’m a poet, but until recently I spent most of my working life as a trainer and researcher in mental health services. This work was explicitly rooted in my own history – a history which has also found…
Will Barrett (Poetry School)
‘Poor, becoming moderate later’
If I wis waddir I’d cheenge i da blink o a untrained ee – I’d be warm, laek da pert breists o wid pigeons a smidgeon ower don, a trifle gien I’d be weet, laek monkfish cheeks lattin da saat wash aff afore divin back in tae aa dey keen I’d be dull, laek a…
Christie Williamson
Primers Shortlist – Roderic Vincent
With this final poet, we reach the end of our Primers shortlist features. We hope you’ve enjoyed discovering their work as much as we have – and we’re certain you’ll be anticipating Kathryn Maris and Jane Commane’s final decision as eagerly as we are. The judges are due to announce the three poets that will…
James Trevelyan (Poetry School)
‘Long Poems & Invocations: Making the Measure Work for You’
Often teachers tell poets to hone, edit and show not tell, or use language more sparingly, but what if we want to rage and roam, and embrace the mental rollercoaster ride which is the long poem? Writing a long poem can be a chance to immerse yourself in the subconscious and surprise yourself with the…
Melissa Lee-Houghton
How I Translated It: The Poetry of Sarah Kirsch (1935-2013) by Anne Stokes
I first came across the poetry of the German poet Sarah Kirsch when studying East German literature. But I returned to her work more recently in an attempt to understand more about how free verse functioned by entering Kirsch’s poems through the close reading and mimicry required when translating. My main interest in Kirsch’s poems…
Poetry School
‘A Life on the Edge: Hinterlands and Homelands’
Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales console the lodger looking out across a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls a child’s name as though they named their loss. Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer – Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre. ‘Prayer’ by Carol Ann Duffy The number of people who will have…
Holly Hopkins Primers Shortlist – Maureen Cullen
We hope you’ve been enjoying discovering the work of the Primers shortlist as much as we have. Over the last few weeks we’ve been showcasing those poets in the running for our mentoring and publication scheme with Nine Arches Press. We’re entering the home straight in our poem features having already presented work from Geraldine Clarkson, Jo…
James Trevelyan (Poetry School)
‘The Word made Fresh’ – Restoring the Bible to English Poetry
My history with the Bible goes back a long way and has materially influenced the course of my life as well as my intellectual, artistic and religious development. As a militant teenage atheist from an a-religious background, I would nevertheless regularly read the King James Bible — as ‘literature’ (that is, for enjoyment) but also…
Steve Ely
‘Binge-Watch’
A poem for Chris Packham You— all cable-knit dadbod, clean cut, clean eating, lisping your feathered Corbynomics, warning of the plight of hedgehogs, the risk of transgender fish and Oh! those otters. This is Binge-Watch, not Autumn Watch. I watch you— boxed, badger-setted, episode by episode, not as young as you used to be (but…
Karen Jane Cannon Primers Shortlist – Mark Cooper
We hope you’ve been enjoying discovering the work of the Primers shortlist as much as we have. Over the last few weeks we’ve been showcasing those poets in the running for our mentoring and publication scheme with Nine Arches Press. We’ve already featured poems from Geraldine Clarkson, Jo Young, Kate Davis, Katie Griffiths, Ken Evans, Louise Ordish and Lucy Ingrams. Now, let’s…
James Trevelyan (Poetry School)
Announcing our Spring 2016 Courses!
Here’s a quick look at what’s on offer for our Spring Term (beginning 25 January 2016). To find out about a particular course or tutor, follow the title links or call us to enquire on 0207 582 1679. If you’d like to print out a copy of our brochure to look through at home, you can…
Poetry School
A New Director for the Poetry School – Update
Keen observers of the Poetry School’s news reports will have noted that we have not yet announced a new Director for the organisation. Ollie Dawson, our previous Director, has now moved to his new job, and the route to find his successor is one we’re taking slowly and carefully. Board, staff and tutor representatives are…
Julia Bird (Poetry School Staff) Primers Shortlist – Lucy Ingrams
We hope you’ve been enjoying discovering the work of the Primers shortlist as much as we have. Over the last few weeks we’ve been showcasing those poets in the running for our mentoring and publication scheme with Nine Arches Press. Hopefully you’ve already had a chance to read poems from Geraldine Clarkson, Jo Young, Kate Davis, Katie Griffiths, Ken Evans and…
James Trevelyan (Poetry School)
A Bibliophile’s Farewell
Time is like a fashionable host That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And with his arms outstretch’d, as he would fly, Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing. – Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida It is with both sighs and smiles that I thank you all…
Lavinia Singer
The Line Break #5 – Alvin Pang: One More Ghost
THE LINE BREAK EPISODE
Poetry School
The Bookseller’s Flair
My last post explored the significance of libraries and the unique personal collections we treasure at home. But how do you go about building one? Walter Benjamin writes of the “thrill of acquisition” in ‘Unpacking My Library’, his jovial essay on book collecting. Acquiring books is by no means “a matter of money or expert…
Lavinia Singer Primers Shortlist – Louise Ordish
We hope you’ve been enjoying discovering the work of the Primers shortlist as much as we have. Over the last few weeks we’ve been showcasing some of those ten poets in the running for our mentoring and publication scheme with Nine Arches Press. The good news is, there are still five poets to come. Do…
James Trevelyan (Poetry School)
‘You took the words right out my mouth’
Next week we will be welcoming the 11th Digital Poet in Residence to the CAMPUS community. Please give a warm welcome to Clare Shaw – poet, Poetry School tutor, mental health researcher and trainer. In this residency – ‘You took the words right out my mouth’ – Clare will explore the practice of ventriloquism in…
Will Barrett (Poetry School)
The Library: Paradise Lost?
There are countless articles listing examples of the ‘most beautiful libraries in the world’. All are utterly spectacular, and show what pride communities have in these repositories of shared wisdom. Even the personal libraries we harbour at home gather value and significance as we add to them over the years: in Erasmus’ words, “Your…
Lavinia Singer Primers Shortlist – Ken Evans
We’ll be spending the next month or so discovering the work of the Primers shortlist – the ten poets in the running for our mentoring and publication scheme with Nine Arches Press. This marks the half-way point of those poets shortlisted for the inaugural Primers. You’ve already seen work from Geraldine Clarkson, Jo Young, Kate…
James Trevelyan (Poetry School) Primers Shortlist – Katie Griffiths
We’ll be spending the next month or so discovering the work of the Primers shortlist – the ten poets in the running for our mentoring and publication scheme with Nine Arches Press. So far we’ve seen poems from three of our poets – Geraldine Clarkson, Jo Young and Kate Davis – and next up is……
James Trevelyan (Poetry School) Primers Shortlist – Kate Davis
We’ll be spending the next month or so discovering the work of the Primers shortlist – the ten poets in the running for our mentoring and publication scheme with Nine Arches Press. So far we’ve seen poems from Geraldine Clarkson and Jo Young, and next up is… Kate Davis Kate Davis is from Barrow-in-Furness, where…
James Trevelyan (Poetry School)
The Art Of Illustration
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures…
Lavinia Singer
Aura and Artists’ Books
Kindles, Nooks, iPads, Portable Reader Systems – for some, electronic books are an ingenious invention. Slender and lightweight with vast storage and interactive controllable viewing screens, they are the latest stage of evolution for the book in today’s digital age. And so why do I shudder at the thought of empty bookshelves and identical…
Lavinia Singer Primers Shortlist – Jo Young
We’ll be spending the next month or so discovering the work of the Primers shortlist – the ten poets in the running for our mentoring and publication scheme with Nine Arches Press. We kicked off these features last week with Geraldine Clarkson, and next up it’s… Jo Young Jo is 39 and from York. She…
James Trevelyan (Poetry School)