Articles
Twit twit twit: George Szirtes
Many young poets and writers have been influenced/taught by George through his time at the University of East Anglia. Others will be more acquainted with his prize-winning book Reel and his extensive translation projects. I first came across him on Twitter, to be honest. I thoroughly enjoy his tweets about what it’s like to be…
Alex MacDonald Twit twit twit: Patricia Lockwood
The title of my residency is ‘This Twittering World’, a reference to T.S. Eliot’s Burnt Norton and, also, Twitter. I discovered a lot of my now favourite poets through Twitter when I joined several years ago. It also was an eye-opener into how the poetic mind works, shoring its ideas into small fragments. In this…
Alex MacDonald
Downloading the Undergrowth
“You do worry about buying electronic goods these days, because technology evolves so fast. It’s not quite the same concern when purchasing an anvil” – Harry Hill Poetry, for many people, will be seen as an anvil – something that won’t fluctuate within the constant gallop of technology. Unlike TV, film or modern art, that…
Alex MacDonald
How to Write Poetry: a List of Various Guides, Primers, Essays and Introductions
Poetry School staff doing some ‘very important’ poetry-based research on Facebook one recent lunchtime noticed an interesting thread populating itself on Allison McVety’s page. Poet and friend of the Poetry School, Allison was asking for recommendations on the technicalities of writing poetry – and dozens of her writerly friends responded with tried-and-tested books and essays…
Julia Bird (Poetry School Staff)
Not the T S Eliot Prize: our best poetry books of 2013
It’s that time of year again. The Christmas tree in your front living room has already begun to embrown and turn weepy, when the first of the ‘Best Poetry Books of Year’ lists begin to trickle in. Far be it from us to snub such an important tradition. As hard as we tried to read…
Will Barrett (Poetry School)
The end of a residency
So it is now the end of my digital residency with the Poetry School and I am having trouble concluding. It was an exciting time for me to be involved, seeing CAMPUS grow in numbers, reading the fascinating blogposts by Julia Bird, Amy Key, Nia Davis, participating in the Live Q&A’s, pushing students of the…
Claire Trevien
Poetic tourism
When I first pitched the idea for this blog post I felt very strongly about the subject of poetic tourism (i.e against it), or at least I thought I did. Concretising my thoughts has made it unfortunately clear to me that this is not as clear cut a topic as I’d hoped, and it is…
Claire Trevien
The 100 poems challenge
What is it about being a poet that makes challenges so attractive? Many questioned my sanity when, inspired by Tim Clare, I decided to take part in a challenge to write 100 poems in a day. Tim Clare is a dab hand at this, having participated in the challenge for the last five years. In the…
Claire Trevien
Reviews as a creative act
Does reviewing feed into your writing? This is one of the questions I, and other poet-reviewers, hear most frequently. Well firstly, I feel that I need to add the following disclaimer: I’ve been heavily reducing my own reviewing of late, mostly as an act of self-preservation. I reserve my reviewing energy for other magazines than…
Claire Trevien
Lo-fi poetry: a best-of
In a recent interview with Helen Ivory, we discussed the new dawn of lo-fi poetry: zines that embrace their low-budgets, a preference for the hand-crafted over the sleek. Helen came up with this wonderful summary of the situation: ‘because of Kindle, books will generally become more beautiful as objects and be valued as such, rather…
Claire Trevien
Why We Built CAMPUS: A Foreword from our Director
With the launch of the CAMPUS blog, I’m delighted that we can now open up the Poetry School’s CAMPUS social network for public registration. CAMPUS is an online platform that incorporates the Poetry School’s tutor-led educational activity (online courses and workshops) and many free activities (digital poets in residence, live Q&A’s, video essays) within a…
Ollie Dawson
Welcome to the CAMPUS blog, a new online space for poetry
The CAMPUS blog is a new home for independent voices, open to all CAMPUS members and non-members, exclusively dedicated to the discussion, support and creative development of poetry. If CAMPUS is the virtual common room where poets can connect and collaborate, then the CAMPUS blog is its public broadcast station. It is totally unrestricted, and…
Poetry School