Blog
Tutor Academy – April 2018
Looking to shake off this Siberian weather? In need of some springtime inspiration? Then check out our upcoming Tutor Academy! For this project we have collaborated with Nathalie Teitler, director of The Complete Works, and co-curated a panel of up-and-coming poets who have never taught for the Poetry School before. We are very happy to be welcoming these 8 poets into…
Andrew Parkes (Poetry School)
Poetry School Books of the Year 2017
What were your top five poetry books of the year? What about top one hundred? Despite a rumour to the contrary… this year has been an alarmingly thick one for poetry. Stupefyingly thick. Not simply coats-the-back-of-a-spoon thick, but thick-enough-to-stand-up-in-a-straw thick, cutting-off-oxygen-flow-thick, a year so thick with great poetry you could re-mortar Dame Mary Archer’s 1683 residence, The Old Vicarage…
Will Barrett (Poetry School)
Queer Poetics: Beyond the White, Straight, (Cis-)Male Literary Canon
In recent years, I’ve been increasingly keen on the word ‘queer’ as a descriptive tool for self-identifying as LGBTQ+, but also as a way of negotiating and understanding the society we find ourselves in. Despite its former derogatory connotations, ‘queer’ has since been reclaimed by many as a powerful lens through which to better depict…
Mary Jean Chan
By Heart in C Minor: On the ‘Drawing Poetry’ Residency
Throughout August, six poet-artists took part in our ‘Drawing Poetry’ residency with the Centre for Recent Drawing. Sria Chatterjee, John Sheehy, Eleanor Penny, Claire Collison, Neringa Dastoor, and Iris Colomb spent a month in the studio at C4RD and attended workshops with poets Holly Corfield Carr and Chris McCabe, and artist Jamie John James Jenkinson, as well as…
Claire Collison
Interview with the Primers Vol. 2 Winners: Cynthia Miller, Marvin Thompson and Ben Bransfield
With the deadline for Primers Volume Three, our mentoring, editing and publication scheme, just around the corner, we thought we’d catch up with last year’s Primers poets, Marvin Thompson, Ben Bransfield and Cynthia Miller, to find out about their experience on the scheme. You can buy their book, Primers Volume Two here! To apply for Primers Volume Three,…
Poetry School
Summer School Mini-Interview Chain: Rachel Long interviews Jane Yeh
For the final link of our Summer School mini-interview chain, Rachel Long’s questions are answered by Jane Yeh, tutor of Writing a Flat-Pack Poem. Rachel: How do you want people to read your poems? Jane: It’s amazing to know that people read one’s poems at all, so first I’m just excited at the prospect! I hope that…
Ali Lewis Summer School Mini-Interview Chain: Rishi Dastidar interviews Rachel Long
In this third instalment of our Summer School Mini-Interview Chain, Rishi Dastidar ‘interviews’ Rachel Long, tutor of our upcoming course, The Berlin Lens. Rishi did not know who he was interviewing, and Rachel didn’t know who she was being interviewed by! Rishi: What’s the book you re-read or re-visit the most? Rachel: Ten: The New Wave The Complete…
Ali Lewis Summer School Mini-Interview Chain: Richard Scott interviews Rishi Dastidar
In this second instalment of our Summer School mini-series, Richard Scott’s questions are answered by Rishi Dastidar, tutor of our upcoming course ‘The Minimum Viable Poem‘. Richard: Tell me about a piece of visual art which you love and that might inspire or has inspired a poem . . . Rishi: Mondrian’s ‘Victory Boogie Woogie’, for…
Ali Lewis Summer School Mini-Interview Chain: Jane Yeh interviews Richard Scott
Ahead of our Summer School at the end of July, we asked the participating tutors to take part in an interview chain. Each tutor asks three questions, and in turn is asked three questions by another tutor. None of the tutors had any idea who they were interviewing, or who was interviewing them. In this…
Ali Lewis Primers Volume 3: A Mentoring and Publication scheme – Now Open for Entries
The Poetry School and Nine Arches Press are delighted to announce the arrival of Primers 3, the third year of our 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 together in…
Andrew Parkes (Poetry School)
National Writing Day: Publisher Emma Wright on Setting Up a Small Press
When I started the Emma Press in 2012, I knew very little about small presses or poetry publishing. I came from a background of tech blogging and major trade publishing, which I’d stumbled into after completing a Classics degree, and my Prince’s Trust business mentor was in the electronics industry. Additionally, my initial idea was…
Emma Wright (The Emma Press)
New Definitions and Neologisms: Interview with Kate Potts
Ahead of her summer one-day workshop on The Poetry of Dictionaries, we caught up with Kate Potts to find out what students can expect. JT: Hi Kate. Thanks for answering a few questions for us! So New Definitions and Neologisms: The Poetry of Dictionaries – it’s quite a workshop title! Can you tell us a little more…
James Trevelyan (Poetry School)
How I Did It – Primers Volume Two: Ben Bransfield on ‘And to this day’
And to this day there’s a well down those woods that feeds off tales of stay aways. By nine our heads were knitted with them: fireside legends, the edges of seats. Chewing our nails, twisting our hair, we’d conker scout the outer trees but soon slip deeper to a cooler place, that well of stone….
Ben Bransfield
Mixed Borders 2017: Round-Up
Our Mixed Borders poets have been working hard in their resident gardens, tilling the imaginative soil to cultivate new poems and activities for the fast-approaching Open Garden Squares Weekend, on June 17-18. Here’s a quick peek over the garden fence, so you can see some of the ideas coming into bud: Nicola Jackson is making seed packet poems in…
Andrew Parkes (Poetry School)
1215.today Poet-in-Residence Round Up: Week 4
It’s been another busy week for our 1215.today Poet-in-Residence, Remi Graves. On Monday, Remi explore a ‘positive vision for the future’, setting out the intention to investigate different relationships to “utopia” throughout the week. On Tuesday, Remi reminisced about dancing to Janelle Monae with sisters, discussing the empowerment & hope of lyrics and asking…
James Trevelyan (Poetry School)
How I Did It – Primers Volume Two: Cynthia Miller on ‘Yellow’
At the Verve Poetry Festival headline on Saturday, Helen Mort, Kayo Chingonyi and Sarah Howe were on a panel discussing their poetry and themes of home and belonging. Sarah remarked that “poetry gave her a background”. I remember being in the audience and having an almost visceral reaction to that comment, with my whole body…
Cynthia Miller 1215.today Poet-in-Residence Round Up: Week 3
On Monday, our 1215.today poet-in-residence Remi Graves wrote about ‘Word and Image: exploring the interplay of poetry and art‘, and covered such varied ground as Theresa May’s tweets, the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat and snapchat. On Tuesday, Remi looked at a new and striking artwork / poem by Jörg Piringer, and challenged her readers to “play…
Ali Lewis 1215.today Residency Round-Up: Week 2
Our 1215.today poet-in-residence Remi Graves kicked off the week talking about ‘subversion’ – in poetry and art – and the (not-so-noble) history of Magna Carta. On Tuesday, Remi ‘Haiku-ised’ the famous Clause 40, and on Wednesday she explored the art of Yinka Shonibare, which “subverts his role as an outsider as a Nigerian-British and disabled artist,…
Ali Lewis 1215.today Poet-in-Residence Remi Graves: Residency Round-Up. Week One
Our new Poetry School 1215.today digital poet-in-residence Remi Graves has had an amazingly productive first week, posting six (!) articles, including playlists and poems. Here’s a taster of what she’s been up to: 14/05: Asking Our New Poet-in-Residence the Questions That Really Matter: “What was the first poem you had a real connection with? “Elizabeth Bishop’s…
Ali Lewis
Our Summer School Programme 2017
Cold weather getting you down? Tired of needing your umbrella every day? Sick of woolly jumpers? Well fear not! Our Summer School is just the ticket for those winter blues. Drums please! We’ve asked some of our favourite poets to run a series of half-day workshops at the end of July, focusing on their passion projects and trying out some…
Andrew Parkes (Poetry School)
‘We KNOW what art is! It’s PAINTINGS of HORSES!’ – an interview with Adam Crothers
The Ugliness Studio with Adam Crothers is a three-week intensive online course beginning on June 5th 2017. Here Adam talks to Rebecca Watts about the literary uses and abuses of bad language, bad form and bad taste. … Before we talk about the course you’re running for the Poetry School in June, I must congratulate…
Rebecca Watts
Poem in Your Pocket Day
Every April people celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day by selecting a poem, carrying it with them, and sharing it with others. This year The Poetry School have joined the festivities and produced some special postcards to showcase a selection of wonderful poems written by our students. You can find physical copies of these postcards in…
Andrew Parkes (Poetry School)
‘A Quiet Passion’ Instagram Poetry Competition Winners!
We are absolutely delighted to announce the results of our recent Instagram poetry competition with Soda Pictures to mark the release of A Quiet Passion – a new biopic of Emily Dickinson (in cinemas from today!). Thank you to everyone who entered – we were overwhelmed by the high quality and great variety of the…
Poetry School
Fair Field Poet In Residence Call Out
Fair Field Poet In Residence a collaboration between the Poetry School and Penned in the Margins Written almost 650 years ago by William Langland, Piers Plowman enters the mind of a wanderer, Will, as he falls asleep in the Malvern Hills, dreams of a ‘fair field full of folk’ and embarks on a quest to…
Poetry School
Tales of the Globe: Interview with Karen Whiteson
Your upcoming course for us is called Tales of the Globe, could you tell us a little bit about it? It is a 5 week course which will be stretched to bursting point in an attempt to contain its material. The main intention is to map some of the connections and differences between that body…
Ali Lewis