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

£90.00 *

Tutor: Matti Spence

Poetics of Presence (Exeter)

Learn to practise poetry as a method of deep-listening and an expansion of how you experience the present moment.

Start Date: May 15, 2018 7pm
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Exeter Community Centre, Exeter

Ecopoetry, Environmentalism and Activism (Bristol)

£90.00 *

Tutor: Samantha Walton

Ecopoetry, Environmentalism and Activism (Bristol)

Explore poetry’s power to engage with environmental issues and imagine new ecological futures.

Start Date: May 16, 2018 7pm
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Hours, Bristol

Saturday Sessions with Ros Barber (Summer 2018)

£177.00 *

Tutor: Ros Barber

Saturday Sessions with Ros Barber (Summer 2018)

Monthly all-day Saturday workshops with Ros Barber.

Start Date: May 26, 2018 10.30am
End Date: July 21, 2018 ( 57 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face • Location:

The New York Influence 2: Basquiat and Jazz Poetry

Sold Out!

Tutor: Tamar Yoseloff

The New York Influence 2: Basquiat and Jazz Poetry

Take inspiration from Basquiat, Langston Hughes and Frank O’Hara, and use their improvisatory and collaborative energy to create new poems.

Start Date: June 23, 2018 10.30am
Type: Face-to-Face • Location:

£144.00 *

Tutor: Jen Calleja

Creative Translation

Learn how to apply the tools of translation and transform other texts and art forms into poetry.

Start Date: June 30, 2018 10.30am
Type: Face-to-Face • Location:

£80.00

Tutor: Jericho Brown

Poetry Surgery with Jericho Brown

Book a one-to-one feedback session with visiting American poet Jericho Brown!

Start Date: July 6, 2018
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: The Poetry School, London

Fresh Words from America: Exploring the Hottest Contemporary American Poetry

£35.00 *

Tutor: Peter Kahn

Fresh Words from America: Exploring the Hottest Contemporary American Poetry

Discover the freshest talent from across the Atlantic with celebrated poet, educator and anthologist Peter Kahn.

Start Date: July 7, 2018 2pm
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: The Poetry School, London

Resonance & Redistribution: Masterclass with Nuar Alsadir

Sold Out!

Tutor: Nuar Alsadir

Resonance & Redistribution: Masterclass with Nuar Alsadir

Get inspired with Nuar Alsadir and learn how to follow the unconscious impulses of your early drafts.

Start Date: July 10, 2018 10:30am
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: The Poetry School, London

Manchester Saturday Sessions (July 2018)

£59.00 *

Tutor: Peter Sansom

Manchester Saturday Sessions (July 2018)

One of three all-day workshop sessions with the Sansoms in Manchester.

Start Date: July 14, 2018 10.30am
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street., Manchester

Literary Locomotion: The Poetry of Movement

£72.00 *

Tutor: Rebecca Goss

Literary Locomotion: The Poetry of Movement

Explore poems on the pleasures and pains of bodily effort.

Start Date: July 21, 2018 10.30am
Type: Face-to-Face • Location:

Portrait of the Artist As a Horse: Animal Transformation in Poetry

£35.00 *

Tutor: A.K. Blakemore

Portrait of the Artist As a Horse: Animal Transformation in Poetry

Learn what it means to be human by exploring the playful and grotesque potential of animal iconography, and the chimeric possibilities of the poetic form with A.K. Blakemore.

Start Date: July 23, 2018 10:30am
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: The Poetry School, London

'She Whom the Moon Ruled': Astrophysics, Astrology & Poetry

£35.00 *

Tutor: Sunayana Bhargava and Rhondda Rhiannon

'She Whom the Moon Ruled': Astrophysics, Astrology & Poetry

Get your telescopes ready to explore the universe with an astrophysicist and consider your place among the stars to inspire new poems of your own.

Start Date: July 23, 2018 2pm
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: The Poetry School, London

Form And Microform: The Cinquain & the Three-Part Poem

£35.00 *

Tutor: George Szirtes

Form And Microform: The Cinquain & the Three-Part Poem

Look at the minutiae and delicate balances of short-form poetry, exploring how the demands of form can liberate the imagination and refine the ear.

Start Date: July 24, 2018 2pm
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: The Poetry School, London

£35.00 *

Tutor: Matthew Welton

"The Phrase"

Explore how phrases can form a vital part of your poetry toolkit, and how deploying a choice phrase can inject something unique into your poems.

Start Date: July 24, 2018 10.30am
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: The Poetry School, London

£35.00 *

Tutor: Will Harris

The Ethics of Perspective

Explore the art, artifice and ethics of bearing witness and taking up other's perspectives in your poetry.

Start Date: July 25, 2018 10.30am
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: The Poetry School, London

Seeing & Being Seen: Poetry, Photography & The Gaze

£35.00 *

Tutor: Amaal Said and Momtaza Mehri

Seeing & Being Seen: Poetry, Photography & The Gaze

Get into, and out of, the frame and explore what it is to see, and be seen, in both poetry and photography.

Start Date: July 25, 2018 2pm
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: The Poetry School, London

£35.00 *

Tutor: Keith Jarrett

Ritual, Belief & Poetry

Investigate the world of rituals, ranging from the everyday to the unusual, and learn how to use these as stepping-off points for new poems.

Start Date: July 26, 2018 10.30am
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: The Poetry School, London

£35.00 *

Tutor: Belinda Zhawi

Sonic Healing: Poems of Loss

Explore the different facets of mourning, and learn how to harness these experiences to create exciting, healing and sonorous new work.

Start Date: July 26, 2018 10.30am
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: The Poetry School, London

£35.00 *

Tutor: Theresa Lola

Poetry & Fashion

Explore how the textures of fashion and poetry intertwine, before using clothing as stimulus to generate new poems.

Start Date: July 27, 2018 10.30am
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: The Poetry School, London

£35.00 *

Tutor: Rachel Long

Irreverent Womyn

Explore the importance of irreverence in contemporary poetry, before writing some impudent poems of your own.

Start Date: July 27, 2018 2pm
Type: Face-to-Face • Location: The 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 administration@poetryschool.com 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