Blog
All of our Blog Posts
Stanzas for Ukraine – 3
Our third blog in the Stanzas for Ukraine project is by the Ukrainian writer Oleh Shynkarenko, who is known for his experimental fiction. However, Russia’s invasion of his homeland spurred him to write poetry. His blog talks of the threat to individual identity under occupation and these previously unpublished poems deal with the war in…
Oleh Shynkarenko Stanzas for Ukraine – 2
Our second blog in the Stanzas for Ukraine project is written by the Crimean-Ukrainian poet Vyacheslav Huk, who now lives in Kyiv. He spent most of his childhood hidden from the Soviet authorities on his grandmother’s farm after reading a protest poem in class. In this week’s piece, he explains why this makes Putin’s attempt…
Vyacheslav Huk Stanzas for Ukraine (First Post)
Poetry School is proud to have partnered with tutors Steve Komarnyckyj and Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese, and PEN International’s Judyth Hill to publish Stanzas for Ukraine. Every fortnight we will publish a blog written by some of the most significant contemporary Ukrainian poets, who will reflect upon the more than 300 years of historical conflict their country has…
Steve Komarnyckyj
Review – Corrigenda for Costafine Town by Jake Morris-Campbell and Working Out by David Hughes
Writing in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads in 1800, Wordsworth famously advocated poetry written in ‘the real language of men’. A couple of centuries and more on, with all of our debates about the relationship between page and stage, all of our continued discussions about poetic register, all of the critical sniffiness there can sometimes…
Jonathan Edwards
We have partnered with Griots Well, offering eight of their runners up free spaces on our Autumn Term.
Griot’s Well is a one year poetry development programme for Black and ethnically diverse poets over the age of 25. We’re excited to announce a new collaborative partnership with the brilliant Griots Well. We are offering their eight runners a free course as part of our upcoming Autumn term. The eight selected poets are part…
Sally Carruthers
Snapshot on: Becky Varley-Winter’s Live Wires: Starting to Write
Our Beginner’s course ‘Live Wires: Starting to Write’ with Becky Varley-Winter recently completed another term and Becky has put together a zine to showcase the students’ best work, which you can see extracts of below. The next iteration of this course will take place in our Summer 2022 Term (running 12 May – 14 July)….
Becky Varley-Winter
Taking the Piss Flower: on the pitfalls of writing poems inspired by art, and bringing something new to the party
Ekphrasis is one of those poemy words poets assume everyone knows, like villanelle, and pantoum; but my Mac doesn’t recognise it, flags it up, and takes me to Wiki – ‘an ekphrastic poem is a poem inspired or stimulated by a work of art’. I remember feeling so happy when I first discovered the word,…
Claire Collison
Glyn Maxwell in Conversation with Linda Gregerson
Glyn Maxwell & Linda Gregerson in conversation – Expect musings on theatre and poetry, new readings, laughter, anecdotes, & insight. Wednesday 13 April at 7 pm BST. Sign up here. This is the second of our ‘In Conversation’ series with Glyn Maxwell which launched with UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage on 8 February. Glyn continues…
Jasmine Ward
The Zen of Ecopoetics: the contribution of Zen to modernist American poetry
In Breathing: Chaos and Poetry, the Italian philosopher Franco Berardi suggests that poetry is the excess of semiotic exchange that goes beyond the limits of language and, by extension, transcends the limits of reality as we know it. In this sense, poetry offers us a way of rethinking our relationship with non-human beings and environments,…
Enaiê Mairê Azambuja
Review – Of Sea by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, and Thinking With Trees by Jason Allen-Paisant
What is the language of the invertebrate? What form might the invertebrate provide the poet? Elizabeth-Jane Burnett’s Of Sea traces the light shed by bodies alternatively-structured: A ‘Prickly Cockle’ ‘start[s] light’, the coat of an aphid ‘dusts light’ in ‘Lupin Aphid’, a ‘Murky-legged Legionnaire Fly’ provides a ‘blurt of sun’. A note at the start…
Amaan Hyder
Sources of Poetic Language
Imagination, Wonder, and the Everyday The mourning doves are beginning to coo again and yesterday I saw the families of cardinals in the yew, all busy setting up. The past few days were very windy, and we found a fallen nest, the size of a basketball, along the street. It feels as if I am…
Carmen Bugan
A Slice of Butterworth-Toast: Writing Poems for Children
I think I could spot a Charles Causley children’s poem a mile away, in the dark. All of them bear a unique fingerprint of magic, music, and respect for the reader’s wish to be entertained – but it’s also true that no two Causley poems are alike. Flip through his Collected Poems for Children and…
Rachel Piercey
Transreading Ethiopia with Chris Beckett
Selam hullu…..Hello everyone! I’ve already blogged about my boyhood in Addis Ababa as an intro for my autumn 2021 course on Childhood: A Source of Praise. So I don’t want to repeat too much of what I said then, but it feels like I’m travelling the same path again! It’s a really great feeling, because…
Chris Beckett
Review – Like a Tree, Walking by Vahni Capildeo
Vahni Capildeo is an astonishingly prolific and inventive poet, and Like a Tree, Walking, showcases the full range of their imagination. The collection begins with a poem ‘In Praise of Birds’, which captures the spirit of the work as a whole: In praise of high-contrast birds, purple bougainvillea thicketing the golden oriole. In praise of…
Maggie Wang
Summer 2022 – Quick Course Guide
Our Summer Term is now live and we’ve got a whole host of brilliant tutors and courses lined up, so be sure to book promptly to avoid disappointment. Below is our handy Quick Guide, where you’ll find everything you’ll need to know about our upcoming courses. Online INTERACTIVE COURSES:Our classic ten-week online courses with Live…
Poetry School
Review – The Voice of Sheila Chandra by Kazim Ali
Kazim Ali’s body of work revitalises how we, as readers, perceive history, narrative, and the lyric. His innovations are captivating, encompassing multiple genres, and swiftly entwining poetry and prose, dramatisation and autobiography. I was especially struck by this a few years ago, when first reading Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities (2012), an earlier collection that challenges any particular notion or expectation of genre; a collection…
Alycia Pirmohamed
We’re Moving to Somerset House Exchange!
We are thrilled to be able to announce that we are moving London-based Poetry School activities from 1 February to our new home in the Somerset House Exchange. We will shortly be sending out detailed directions and course instructions to all enrolled students; we can’t wait to welcome you to this community of arts practitioners in…
Poetry School
Writing After David Lynch – Students’ Poem
The Writing After David Lynch ten-week course took us all on a thrilling and mysterious journey across David Lynch’s films. As part of the penultimate session, on Mulholland Drive, I invited the students to respond to Naomi Watts’ staggering audition scene with a single four-line stanza, that I would then order and curate into a group poem. I took inspiration…
Chrissy Williams
Review – Brilliant Corners by Nuzhat Bukhari, A Blood Condition by Kayo Chingonyi
How do we reconcile conflicting inheritances? Many poets of colour find themselves caught between two roads: the English lyric, whose focus on internal feeling can imply a disavowal of history, and the real histories from which today’s poets arise; histories bent by the home of the English lyric. The lyric and its most apparently ahistorical…
April Yee
Poetry Books of the Year 2021
We are delighted to share our favourite poetry books of the year! It has been another challenging year for obvious reasons, but, in spite of it all, poetry has not only persevered but thrived! 2021 has seen the publication of so many incredible titles, both from established names and emerging poets. So, without further ado,…
Poetry School
Spring 2022 – Quick Course Guide
Our Spring Term is now live and we’ve got a whole host of brilliant tutors and courses lined up, so be sure to book promptly to avoid disappointment. Below is our handy Quick Guide, where you’ll find everything you’ll need to know about our upcoming courses. Online INTERACTIVE COURSES:Our classic ten-week online courses with Live…
Poetry School
How I Did It: Forward Prizes – Holly Pester on Comic Timing
Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2021 ‘How I Did It’ series. This year we asked the poets shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection to explain the writing process behind one of the poems in their collections. In this piece, Holly Pester talks about ‘Comic Timing’ from her collection of the same…
Poetry School
How I Did It: Forward Prizes – Alice Hiller on Bird of Winter
Content warning: Please note that this piece includes discussion of sexual abuse which some readers may find upsetting. Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2021 ‘How I Did It’ series. This year we asked the poets shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection to explain the writing process behind one of the poems…
Poetry School
How I Did It: Forward Prizes – Ralf Webb on Rotten Days in Late Summer
Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2021 ‘How I Did It’ series. This year we asked the poets shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection to explain the writing process behind one of the poems in their collections. In this piece, Ralf Webb talks about ‘Love Story: Discourse Goblins’ from his collection Rotten Days…
Poetry School
Review – Virga by Togara Muzanenhamo
Togara Muzanenhamo’s third collection of poetry, Virga, derives its name from a phenomenon in which precipitation falls from a cloud but evaporates before it reaches the ground. Accordingly, the poems in the collection have a replete and ephemeral quality, depicting fragile terrains of abundant beauty, and the crowning feats of destinies that fluctuate like The…
Isabelle Baafi