Blog
Announcing the Poetry School MA in Writing Poetry Scholarship 2025
We’re delighted to announce that, as of Saturday 1 March, applications are open for the Poetry School MA in Writing Poetry Scholarship 2025. This is a full fee scholarship award to the Poetry School / Newcastle University MA in Writing Poetry for an outstanding UK-based applicant who is currently underrepresented in the poetry world. By underrepresented poets, we…
Poetry School
‘Street Sauntering’ by Suzannah V. Evans — a blog on Flâneur-ing About: The Poetry of Streets
Suzannah V. Evans explains how her new course: ‘Flâneur-ing About: The Poetry of Streets‘ will help you write poetry as you meander through cities. I have an urge to begin this blog mid-sentence, perhaps with the word ‘So’ or ‘Alors’, its French equivalent, because then I could imagine the sentence appearing suddenly out from behind…
SuzannahVE
‘Tender Towards Innocence’ by Carmen Bugan: a blog on Innocence in a Troubled World
Carmen Bugan explains how her new course: ‘A Quest for Innocence in a Troubled World‘ will help you write poetry that faces up to this worrisome time. I borrowed the title of this piece from Seamus Heaney, who has said about Czeslaw Milosz: Tender towards innocence, tough-minded when faced with brutality and injustice, Milosz could…
Carmen Bugan
What Is Revolutionary Poetics? by Mischa Foster Poole
Here is Mischa Foster Poole talking about his course Revolutionary Poetics: Writing Against the Grain; Alternate art; busting open the poem to embrace new and experimental forms. (5) This is because the tools that we have to hand are provided by the hegemonic ideology, the mode of production that seeks to ideologically reproduce itself through the…
Mischa Foster Poole
‘He Do The Police In Different Voices’ by Stephen Komarnyckyj: a blog on Alternative Histories
Stephen Komarnyckyj explains how his new course: Writing Alternative Poetic Histories will help you write poetry that faces up to this difficult moment in history I began to think about the role of poetry during what might be a global war during a Skype call with my cousin in 2022. He was in his cellar…
Steve Komarnyckyj
What Is Poetic Theft? with Louis Glazzard
Here is Louis Glazzard talking about his course Poetic Theft: From Inspiration to Transformation; A transformative workshop series about harnessing your inspirations to expand your writing. In Pursuit of Originality… Everything I’ve ever created has been inspired by something. Well, almost everything. When I first started writing I was obsessed with being original. In fact,…
Louis Glazzard
Wallpaper: Poems & Houses with Laura Scott
Here’s Laura Scott on her upcoming course, Poems & Houses; House & home; poetics of our storied buildings. My house and the ghost of a doorway In my house there’s the ghost of a doorway. I can’t remember when I first noticed it, but I do remember the gentle shock of running my hand over…
Laura Scott
Science & Poetry: The Laboratory of Verse! with Mario Petrucci
Here’s Mario Petrucci on his upcoming course, Science & Poetry: The Laboratory of Verse; Fissile material; experiment with scientific stanzas and supercharge your poetic skills. Science as a metaphor As someone versed in quantum physics, I’m fascinated by metaphor, the way everything (as in the quantum world) can become everything else. That’s the engine-room of my…
Mario Petrucci
Review Essay – Half Other by Peter Wallis
Nicola Healey reads the new poetry collection by Peter Wallis: Half Other, ‘a reminder of the significance of lateral relations in our lives’ whole’. ‘I was not born alone’: Twinhood and Illness Peter Wallis’s first full collection, Half Other, takes inspiration from his life as a twin, focusing on the lengthy ill health and hospital…
Nicola Healey
New Poets Collective – Quick Course Guide
In addition to our Summer programme this year, we are running a series of exciting courses tutored by fresh voices from The New Poets Collective. Have a look at the below quick guide to this fantastic line up and make sure you book your place quickly to avoid disappointment! In-Person Courses Poems as Constellations with…
Poetry School
Dear Rwanda: Creating a Poetry Souvenir
Here’s Isy Mead on her upcoming course, Poetry Souvenirs, keepsakes from over there; capturing the foreign without the fake. Rwanda, or ‘The Land of a Thousand Hills’, has a beauty beyond imagining. It is characterised by ubiquitous hillside terraces and spreading banana groves, by stunning, bright-green tea-fields to the south, and green and gold safari…
Isabella Mead
Wilder Swimming – Blog by Penny Boxall on ‘Tales from the Wetlands’
A blog by Penny Boxall on her upcoming course ‘Tales from the Wetlands Studio’ The first time I went to Estonia, I was surprised at the extent to which tales and folklore are woven into the landscape there. Friends told me you must not sit on the sandy beach until the first thunderstorm of the…
Penny Boxall
The Freedom of Writing
Michal Kamil Piotrowski on his course: ‘A Kaleidoscope of Forms: Innovative Poetry in the 21st Century’ Hello! In this post I will write a bit about experimental poetry. But first – what makes poetry experimental or innovative? In my opinion, the most important aspect is that, unlike traditional poetry, it concentrates on the future, it…
Michał Kamil Piotrowski
Rebecca Levi on ‘The stars of Chile for you (Las estrellas de Chile para ti)’: Transreading 5 Chilean Women Poets
Here’s Rebecca Levi on her upcoming course, ‘The stars of Chile for you (Las estrellas de Chile para ti)’: Transreading 5 Chilean Women Poets‘ December, 2018. Santiago, Chile. My friend’s kitchen. It was an old house with an inner courtyard, home to three, sometimes five women, plus a cat (female, obviously). A soft house, as if…
Rebecca Levi
Identity Poetics: A Century of Englishness
Christopher Madden reads the latest anthology edited by John Greening and Kevin Gardner, and the new poetry collection by Aaron Kent. Contraflow: Lines of Englishness 1922-2022, Ed. John Greening & Kevin Gardner Every anthology poses two fundamental questions: ‘Why this?’, and ‘Why now?’ For John Greening and Kevin Gardner, the editors of Contraflow: Lines of…
Christopher Madden
Blog on our course ‘Making Poetry Happen: Poetry Performance by Women & Gender Nonconforming Artists’
Iris Columb on her forthcoming course ‘Making Poetry Happen: Poetry Performance by Women & Gender Nonconforming Artists’, beginning Thursday 25 January 2024. The Risk of Liveness I attended my first poetry night, by chance, in 2014. It was through watching people share their words with a room full of friends and strangers that I really…
Iris Colomb
Abigail Parry – T.S. Eliot Writers’ Notes
Welcome to our T.S. Eliot Prize 2023 Writers’ Notes. This year, alongside the usual Readers’ Notes, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Poetry School are collaborating on a set of Writers’ Notes for the shortlisted collections. These are educational resources for poets looking to develop their practice and learn from some of contemporary poetry’s most exciting and accomplished…
Poetry School
Jane Clarke – T.S. Eliot Writers’ Notes
Welcome to our T.S. Eliot Prize 2023 Writers’ Notes. This year, alongside the usual Readers’ Notes, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Poetry School are collaborating on a set of Writers’ Notes for the shortlisted collections. These are educational resources for poets looking to develop their practice and learn from some of contemporary poetry’s most exciting and accomplished…
Poetry School
A “Cento Sonnet” written by Mary Dickins on Jacqueline Saphra’s ‘Creative Constraint’.
We are delighted to be publishing this piece of poetry collage, from the Autumn 2023 term of Jacqueline Saphra’s course Creative Constraint. In a group exercise this term, each of Jacqueline’s fourteen students shared one line of a sonnet to develop for homework. Mary has then fashioned all of these one line prompts into a…
Poetry School
Blog on our Climate Crisis Poetry Course ‘Burning Gaze: Revisiting the Romantics During Global Heating.’
Here’s Glyn Edwards on his upcoming course, Burning Gaze: Revisiting the Romantics During Global Heating, exploring romanticism and climate crisis poetry. ‘Nearly Daffodils’: BBC6, English Teacher(s), Wordsworth, and Adrian Henri BBC 6 Music has three playlists; the selection of songs appear on rotation through the day. Sometimes, a song that received intermittent radio play months…
Glyn Edwards
Joe Carrick-Varty – T.S. Eliot Prize Writers’ Notes
Welcome to our T.S. Eliot Prize 2023 Writers’ Notes. This year, alongside the usual Readers’ Notes, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Poetry School are collaborating on a set of Writers’ Notes for the shortlisted collections. These are educational resources for poets looking to develop their practice and learn from some of contemporary poetry’s most exciting and accomplished…
Poetry School Jason Allen-Paisant – T.S. Eliot Writers’ Notes
Welcome to our T.S. Eliot Prize 2023 Writers’ Notes. This year, alongside the usual Readers’ Notes, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Poetry School are collaborating on a set of Writers’ Notes for the shortlisted collections. These are educational resources for poets looking to develop their practice and learn from some of contemporary poetry’s most exciting and accomplished…
Poetry School
Now I Have a Poem, HO-HO-HO
Chrissy Williams on her forthcoming festive one-day poetry workshop, ‘Yippee-Ki-Yay: Writing Poems Inspired by DIE HARD’. Ah, Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year, a time for sharing warm fires, hastily wrapped gifts, and generational discord. Like many, I gravitate towards Die Hard at Christmas: a film about family and violent resolution with all…
Poetry School
Poetry School x TLC Free Reads Scheme 2023-24
Looking to develop your writing under the guidance of a published poet? Poetry School is delighted to be partnering with The Literary Consultancy in offering 1 poet a free Mentoring place from February 2024. Find out how to apply below! This year, we’re excited to be joining the TLC Arts Council England Free Reads Scheme,…
Poetry School
Kit Fan – T.S. Eliot Writers’ Notes
Welcome to our T.S. Eliot Prize 2023 Writers’ Notes. This year, alongside the usual Readers’ Notes, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Poetry School are collaborating on a set of Writers’ Notes for the shortlisted collections. These are educational resources for poets looking to develop their practice and learn from some of contemporary poetry’s most exciting and accomplished…
Poetry School