Face-to-Face Courses

Write more poems

Face-to-face teaching has been at the core of our educational programme since 1997. Running three terms a year both in our London classrooms and regional centres across the UK, our face-to-face courses and workshops have helped countless poets find encouragement for their work and allowed their poetry to flourish.

On our face-to-face courses, a group of students meet on a regular basis with their tutor to read their own work, discuss poetry, and – session by session – develop new skills and confidence as poet. We offer a breadth of approach to learning poetry, with some courses focusing on form and technique, whilst others look to provide inspiration for generating new writing or offer close readings of certain poets or movements.

The longest courses we offer stretch over three terms (general, covering a wide variety of skills and subjects) and the shortest courses we offer are one-day workshops (specific, looking at specialist subjects and techniques).

All our Face-to-Face Courses

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Tutor: Jacqueline Saphra

Creative Constraint (Spring 2020)

Mix up your writing and learn new skills and techniques with Jacqueline Saphra

Start Date: January 15, 2020 6.45pm
End Date: March 18, 2020 ( 64 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

Advanced Poetry Workshop with Special Guests (Spring 2020)

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Tutor: Kathryn Maris

Advanced Poetry Workshop with Special Guests (Spring 2020)

One of our flagship advanced workshops, with the added perk of special guests each term

Start Date: January 20, 2020 2.00pm
End Date: March 23, 2020 ( 64 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

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Tutor: Wayne Holloway-Smith

What Now? (Spring 2020)

Take the next steps in your poetry career and explore contemporary poetry’s cutting-edge

Start Date: January 20, 2020 6.45pm
End Date: March 23, 2020 ( 64 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

The Poet’s Toolkit with Special Guests (Spring 2020)

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Tutor: Shazea Quraishi

The Poet’s Toolkit with Special Guests (Spring 2020)

Hone your craft, explore poetry’s inner workings, and look at techniques to help your poems achieve lift-off

Start Date: January 20, 2020 6.45pm
End Date: March 30, 2020 ( 71 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

Reading Course: Those Various Scalpels - Four Modernist Women

£180.00 *

Tutor: Matthew Caley

Reading Course: Those Various Scalpels - Four Modernist Women

Smash the patriarchy and bring light to the exceptional work of some major female Modernists.

Start Date: January 21, 2020 6.45pm
End Date: March 24, 2020 ( 64 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

Intermediate Poetry Workshop (Spring 2020)

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Tutor: Tim Dooley

Intermediate Poetry Workshop (Spring 2020)

Tim Dooley’s weekly workshop for poets looking to develop their individual voice and technique

Start Date: January 22, 2020 2.00pm
End Date: April 1, 2020 ( 71 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

Advanced Poetry Workshop with Mark Waldron (Spring 2020)

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Tutor: Mark Waldron

Advanced Poetry Workshop with Mark Waldron (Spring 2020)

Develop your writing through discussion and feedback in this advanced course with Mark Waldron

Start Date: January 22, 2020 6.45pm
End Date: April 1, 2020 ( 71 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

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Tutor: Meryl Pugh

First Encounters (Spring 2020)

Take your first steps into the world of poetry!

Start Date: January 23, 2020 6.45pm
End Date: March 26, 2020 ( 64 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

£95.00 *

Tutor: Andy Brown

Uses of the Past

“I'm never going back, the past is in the past” – Elsa of Arendelle

Start Date: January 23, 2020 7pm
End Date: March 19, 2020 ( 57 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Exeter Community Centre, Exeter

Advanced Poetry Workshop with Richard Price (Spring 2020)

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Tutor: Richard Price

Advanced Poetry Workshop with Richard Price (Spring 2020)

Develop your writing through discussion and feedback in this advanced workshop

Start Date: January 24, 2020 11.00am
End Date: March 27, 2020 ( 64 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

Verse Drama After Shakespeare: Writing Poetic Plays Today

£75.00 *

Tutor: Richard O'Brien

Verse Drama After Shakespeare: Writing Poetic Plays Today

Calling poets, playwrights, and Shakespeare-lovers! Join us for an exciting exploration of verse drama and learn how to use these techniques in your own poetic and theatrical writing.

Start Date: January 25, 2020 10.30am
End Date: January 25, 2020 ( 1 Day )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

£95.00 *

Tutor: Adam Feinstein

"Between the shadow & the soul": Exploring Latin American Poetry

Sweep through a breadth of Latin American poetry under the expert eye of Pablo Neruda’s acclaimed biographer and translator.

Start Date: January 28, 2020 6.45pm
End Date: March 24, 2020 ( 57 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

Radical Resistances: Writing Against Sense

£95.00 *

Tutor: Mischa Foster Poole

Radical Resistances: Writing Against Sense

Join the avant-garde, issue a radical challenge to sense, and interrogate the nature of meaning in poetry.

Start Date: January 30, 2020 6.45pm
End Date: March 26, 2020 ( 57 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

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Tutor: Katharine Kilalea

Poetry Surgery with Katharine Kilalea

In-depth 1-2-1 discussion on your poetry with Katharine Kilalea

Start Date: January 30, 2020
End Date: January 30, 2020 ( 1 Day )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

WRITE AHEAD: Free Introductory Workshop (Friday 31st January)

£0.00

Tutor: Chrissy Williams

WRITE AHEAD: Free Introductory Workshop (Friday 31st January)

Want to be a poet? Go Write Ahead.

Start Date: January 31, 2020 7pm
End Date: January 31, 2020 ( 1 Day )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

Saturday Sessions with Ros Barber (Spring 2020)

£177.00 *

Tutor: Ros Barber

Saturday Sessions with Ros Barber (Spring 2020)

Monthly all-day Saturday workshops with Ros Barber

Start Date: February 1, 2020 10.30am
End Date: March 28, 2020 ( 57 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

Writing the Self: Performance & Sacrifice

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Tutor: Nisha Ramayya

Writing the Self: Performance & Sacrifice

Explore what it means to perform aspects of the self in your poetry and discuss what is lost, gained, and – potentially – transformed in the process.

Start Date: February 1, 2020 10.30am
End Date: February 1, 2020 ( 1 Day )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

Her Voracious Stare: Inspiration from the Eye & Art of Dora Maar

£150.00 *

Tutor: Rachel Long

Her Voracious Stare: Inspiration from the Eye & Art of Dora Maar

Get inspired with a day at the Tate Modern before coming together to workshop new poems a month later.

Start Date: February 9, 2020 10.30am
End Date: March 15, 2020 ( 36 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location:

£150.00 *

Tutor: Hannah Lowe

X-Lit: Ways into Memoir

An intensive weekend exploring life writing with acclaimed poet and memoirist Hannah Lowe.

Start Date: February 15, 2020 10.30am
End Date: February 16, 2020 ( 2 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

Joy in the Detail: Editing as a Creative Process

£95.00 *

Tutor: Jane Commane

Joy in the Detail: Editing as a Creative Process

Develop your critical confidence and acquire a veritable poet’s toolkit of skills to become your best self-editor with the editor-in-chief at Nine Arches Press.

Start Date: February 15, 2020 12pm
End Date: April 11, 2020 ( 57 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: The Pen Museum, Birmingham

£95.00 *

Tutor: Jonathan Edwards

"The Wild"

Take a walk on the wild side to explore the extraordinary power that animals can bring into your poems.

Start Date: February 22, 2020 12pm
End Date: April 18, 2020 ( 57 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Hours, Bristol

Parasol unit Workshop: A Ballad of Transformation

Tutor: Ella Frears

Parasol unit Workshop: A Ballad of Transformation

Move through time with poet and visual artist Ella Frears

Start Date: February 29, 2020 10.30am
End Date: February 29, 2020 ( 1 Day )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location:

£75.00 *

Tutor: Sean O'Brien

In My Beginning is My End: Masterclass

Head to the moon with Sean O’Brien and consider which parts of your poems should be jettisoned into the vacuum of space.

Start Date: February 29, 2020 10.30am
End Date: February 29, 2020 ( 1 Day )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

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Tutor: Maurice Riordan

Poetry Surgery with Maurice Riordan

In-depth 1-2-1 discussion on your poetry with Maurice Riordan

Start Date: February 29, 2020
End Date: February 29, 2020 ( 1 Day )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

This Goes There, That Comes After: List Poems

£75.00 *

Tutor: James Davies

This Goes There, That Comes After: List Poems

Get things in order and explore the many uses of the list form with James Davies.

Start Date: March 14, 2020 10.30am
End Date: March 14, 2020 ( 1 Day )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

Window, Mirror, Knife, Disaster, & Reinvention: Poetry of Glass

£75.00 *

Tutor: Judy Brown

Window, Mirror, Knife, Disaster, & Reinvention: Poetry of Glass

Wipe off your monocle, have your glass armonica tuned, move the tomatoes into the greenhouse, and smash the glass ceiling with Judy Brown.

Start Date: March 14, 2020 10.30am
End Date: March 14, 2020 ( 1 Day )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

£150.00 *

Tutor: Antosh Wojcik

Soundtext Weekender

An immersive weekender of sound experimentation and text generation.

Start Date: March 21, 2020 10.30am
End Date: March 22, 2020 ( 2 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

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Tutor: Mary Jean Chan

Poetry Surgery with Mary Jean Chan

In-depth 1-2-1 discussion on your poetry with Mary Jean Chan

Start Date: March 27, 2020
End Date: March 27, 2020 ( 1 Day )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

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Tutor: Liz Berry

Try a Little Tenderness: Masterclass

If we must first write from the heart in order to write poems for the heart, how do we begin this tender work?

Start Date: March 28, 2020 10.30am
End Date: March 28, 2020 ( 1 Day )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Poetry School, London

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HOW FACE-TO-FACE WORKS

Tutor and students sit round a large table for a typical Poetry School course session or workshop and the meetings are friendly and relatively informal.

In each session, you might be given Exercises (specific writing tasks to inspire your own poems or ideas) or Feedback (comments on your work by tutors and / or other students); you might be Reading (close attention to published poems, looking for examples of technique, style, theme or form), Writing (working towards creating new poems throughout the duration of the course or workshop) or a combination of all these. Some courses will include tasks for you to complete at home.

Our face to face courses are designed to suit all levels of experience: some activities are open to all, and others are structured with beginner, intermediate or advanced poets specifically in mind. Similarly, our activities aim to offer a breadth of approach to learning poetry, with some focusing on form and technique, whilst others look to provide inspiration for your writing.

WHAT WILL I LEARN?

Content will vary course to course, but on all our face-to-face courses you can expect the following:

reading, writing and thinking about poetry in different ways
exposure to new writers, voices, forms and styles
the confidence to write more and devote more time to writing
generating new work
discovery of new areas and subjects for research
better understanding of how to make choices (length, theme, tone, etc)
enhanced critical skills
practical advice on further development

Many of our teaching poets are also performers, makers and artists, as well as teachers, and like to teach more than just poetry in their classes. One of the great advantages of face-to-face teaching is that is doesn’t always have to happen in a classroom. From time to time, we also like to run workshops where as well as writing poems, you might be going on a walking tour, exploring a priceless archive, painting pictures, eating exotic foods, making theatre props or even swimming in the wild.

We pride ourselves on the standard of our teaching and the poetry produced on every one of our courses. Many of our students have gone on to successfully submit their course work for publication in magazines and journals, and had success in competitions. But don’t take it from us: read some of our many student testimonials.

COURSE FORMATS

Generally speaking we offer 3 main types of face-to-face course:

LONG COURSES are more than 10 weeks and run over several terms. All our long courses start in the Autumn, but can be joined mid-way (subject to availability). Long courses are quite general and will encompass a large variety of ideas and techniques suitable for particular skill levels.

SHORT COURSES are commonly 10 weeks or less, once a term, with regular sessions running weekly or fortnightly. Short courses tend to focus on a particular subject, theme, form or technical aspect of poetry, often open to all levels.

WORKSHOPS are weekend, one or half day sessions. One day workshops are intensive writing and learning experiences that last 5 hours (with an additional 1 hour lunch break).

If you’re unsure which class, level, or style of course might be best for you, you can contact our administration team on [email protected] for help with any course queries you might have.

FAQ

The activity I want is fully booked – what can I do?

Lost property?

Lost property will be kept in the office at 81 Lambeth Walk. Please call or email us if you believe you have left something in the classrooms.

What should I do if I can’t make a class session?

What is your refunds policy?

If you cannot attend a course a full refund will be made as long as cancellation is received four weeks before the course start date. After this period, we are only able to give you a refund if the course has sold out and we are able to fill your place. Refunds cannot be given if you were unable to attend a course or did not log on to the online chats. Please read our Terms & Conditions for more information.

How do I teach for the Poetry School?

Please send us details of your publication record and teaching experience and the ideas you have for courses and workshops you'd like to teach. If your ideas for the programme are a fit for ours, we will start to make joint plans. Download this 'Teaching for the Poetry School for the First Time' hand out which might be useful.

All our Face-to-Face Courses

HOW FACE-TO-FACE WORKS

WHAT WILL I LEARN?

COURSE FORMATS

FAQ

The activity I want is fully booked – what can I do?

Lost property?

What should I do if I can’t make a class session?

What is your refunds policy?

How do I teach for the Poetry School?

Find a Course