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Online Courses

Learn poetry anywhere in the world

Our online programme of poetry courses and workshops makes learning poetry accessible to everyone, all from the comfort of your kitchen table. We offer online courses three terms a year and free learning activities all year round, both via CAMPUS, our social network for poets, giving you access at any time, from any place.

Year on year, we offer one of the largest programmes of online poetry courses in the world, covering a huge array of subjects and techniques, and available to you with as little as an Internet connection. Much like our face-to-face teaching, each online course is facilitated by one of our experienced tutors, who will provide quality writing assignments, reading material and personalised feedback on your poems, but in this instance, all via a virtual classroom.

Up to a fifth of all our online course students are based outside of the UK, from America and Canada to India, Germany, Singapore, Mexico, Uzbekistan and Australia. And the majority of our online courses are suitable to all levels of poets, employing a peer-to-peer model of education that draws strength from the diversity of voices from our students across the globe.

All our Online Courses

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Advanced Poetry Workshop with Mark Waldron (Summer 2021)

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

Start Date: May 5, 2021 6.45pm
End Date: July 7, 2021 ( 64 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face, Online

Intermediate Poetry Workshop with Tim Dooley (Summer 2021)

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Tutor: Tim Dooley

Intermediate Poetry Workshop with Tim Dooley (Summer 2021)

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

Start Date: May 5, 2021 2.00pm
End Date: July 14, 2021 ( 71 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face, Online

The Possibility of Everything: Writing Experimental Poetry

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Tutor: James Davies

The Possibility of Everything: Writing Experimental Poetry

An advanced tour through avant-garde writing with the editor of experimental poetry press, if p then q.

Start Date: May 5, 2021
End Date: July 28, 2021 ( 85 Days )
Type: Online

‘Concept Books’ & Cumulative Writing (International, Summer 2021)

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Tutor: Shazea Quraishi

‘Concept Books’ & Cumulative Writing (International, Summer 2021)

Explore writing around a unifying idea to create a multi-faceted, cumulative 'concept book’.

Start Date: May 5, 2021
End Date: July 21, 2021 ( 78 Days )
Type: Online

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Tutor: Meryl Pugh

First Encounters (Summer 2021)

Take your first steps into the world of poetry!

Start Date: May 6, 2021 6.45pm
End Date: July 8, 2021 ( 64 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face, Online

Fortnightly Feedback with André Naffis-Sahely (Summer 2021)

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Tutor: André Naffis-Sahely

Fortnightly Feedback with André Naffis-Sahely (Summer 2021)

Knock your loose poems into shape with some concentrated feedback from expert editor and poet, André Naffis-Sahely.

Start Date: May 6, 2021
End Date: July 15, 2021 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

Advanced Poetry Workshop with Richard Price (Summer 2021)

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Tutor: Richard Price

Advanced Poetry Workshop with Richard Price (Summer 2021)

Develop your writing through discussion and feedback in this advanced workshop with Richard Price.

Start Date: May 7, 2021 11.00am
End Date: July 16, 2021 ( 71 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face, Online

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Tutor: Liz Berry

Poetry Surgery with Liz Berry

In-depth 1-2-1 discussion on your poetry with Liz Berry.

Start Date: May 8, 2021 10.30am
End Date: May 8, 2021 ( 1 Day )
Type: Face-to-Face, Online

Saturday Sessions with Ros Barber (Summer 2021)

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Tutor: Ros Barber

Saturday Sessions with Ros Barber (Summer 2021)

Monthly all-day Saturday workshops with Ros Barber.

Start Date: May 8, 2021 10.30am
End Date: July 3, 2021 ( 57 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face, Online

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Tutor: Richard Scott and James Womack

Overenthusiastic Translation

Break down and build up again: look at the work of non-English poets from the past and uncover the clues they can offer your own practice.

Start Date: May 8, 2021 10.30am
End Date: May 22, 2021 ( 15 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face, Online

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Tutor: Wayne Holloway-Smith

What Now? (Advanced, Summer 2021)

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

Start Date: May 10, 2021 6.45pm
End Date: July 19, 2021 ( 71 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face, Online

Poetry Dinner Party: The Old & the New Studio+

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Tutor: Phoebe Power

Poetry Dinner Party: The Old & the New Studio+

Bring voices from literary history into conversation with present-day poetics to expand your own writing.

Start Date: May 10, 2021
End Date: June 14, 2021 ( 36 Days )
Type: Online

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Tutor: Wayne Holloway-Smith

What Now? (Intermediate, Summer 2021)

Bring your poetry to the next level and explore contemporary poetry’s cutting-edge.

Start Date: May 11, 2021 6.45pm
End Date: July 13, 2021 ( 64 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face, Online

Integrated Circuits: Creating Digital Poetry (Summer 2021)

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Tutor: Maya Chowdhry

Integrated Circuits: Creating Digital Poetry (Summer 2021)

Leap from page to screen and create interactive poems fit for our digital age.

Start Date: May 11, 2021
End Date: July 13, 2021 ( 64 Days )
Type: Online

Shifting Landscape: Ecopoetics, the Body, & Science of Time (International)

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Tutor: Elena Karina Byrne

Shifting Landscape: Ecopoetics, the Body, & Science of Time (International)

Embody the natural world and become the speaking body of nature in your work.

Start Date: May 12, 2021
End Date: July 21, 2021 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

Transreading Ukrainian poetry: ‘a crimson bush amidst silence’

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Tutor: Steve Komarnyckyj

Transreading Ukrainian poetry: ‘a crimson bush amidst silence’

Explore one of the world's greatest neglected literatures in Transreading Ukrainian poetry.

Start Date: May 12, 2021
End Date: July 21, 2021 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

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Tutor: Jonathan Edwards

Poetry & The Family

Explore sensitive and truthful ways to represent family relationships in your work.

Start Date: May 12, 2021
End Date: July 21, 2021 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

Ars Poetica: Cold Showers & Restless Sheets

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Tutor: Sam Buchan-Watts

Ars Poetica: Cold Showers & Restless Sheets

Test the limits of ‘ars poetica’ to ask whether all poems are really about poetry?

Start Date: May 12, 2021
End Date: July 21, 2021 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

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Tutor: Rebecca Levi

Poetry that Travels

After a year spent in one place, join us for some poetic travel!

Start Date: May 13, 2021 7.00pm
End Date: July 8, 2021 ( 57 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face, Online

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Lyric Poetry & Poetic Lyrics (International)

Read and write poetry, listen to music, take inspiration from lyrics, and consider the connections between them all.

Start Date: May 13, 2021
End Date: July 22, 2021 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

£109.00 *

Tutor: Zakia Carpenter-Hall

Myth, Body, Belief (Summer 2021)

Start to depict your own multitudes and forge pathways of poetic connection.

Start Date: May 13, 2021
End Date: July 22, 2021 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

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Tutor: Becky Varley-Winter

Soundscapes

Explore poetry as a musical instrument, to develop your skills with rhythm and musicality.

Start Date: May 20, 2021 7.00pm
End Date: July 15, 2021 ( 57 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face, Online

Libations: Exploring the Inner Spring Studio

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Tutor: Belinda Zhawi

Libations: Exploring the Inner Spring Studio

Reconnect with, and celebrate, the world around you through poetry.

Start Date: May 26, 2021
End Date: June 23, 2021 ( 29 Days )
Type: Online

£150.00 *

Tutor: Glyn Maxwell

Dark Canadee

Calling Poets, Pirates, and Dreamers; come sail with us to Dark Canadee.

Start Date: May 28, 2021
Type: Online

Caledonia Dreamin': Exploring Scotland's Poetry

£75.00 *

Tutor: Richard Price

Caledonia Dreamin': Exploring Scotland's Poetry

Take a tour of Scottish poetry with expert guide, Richard Price.

Start Date: June 12, 2021 10.30am
End Date: July 3, 2021 ( 22 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face, Online

‘I Know That is Poetry’: A Reading & Writing Workshop

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Tutor: Eve Grubin

‘I Know That is Poetry’: A Reading & Writing Workshop

Explore the work of Emily Dickinson for inspiration in your own writing.

Start Date: June 16, 2021 6.30pm
End Date: June 30, 2021 ( 15 Days )
Type: Face-to-Face, Online

'The Owls Are Not What They Seem’: Writing Poems Inspired by Twin Peaks

£75.00 *

Tutor: Chrissy Williams

'The Owls Are Not What They Seem’: Writing Poems Inspired by Twin Peaks

Across the room, a giant waves his arms in slow-motion as the music fades – poetry is happening again.

Start Date: June 19, 2021 10.30am
End Date: June 19, 2021 ( 1 Day )
Type: Face-to-Face, Online

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Tutor: Caroline Bergvall

Site-Specific Writing Studio

After being cooped up inside for so long, take your writing into the world and get site-specific.

Start Date: June 23, 2021
End Date: July 21, 2021 ( 29 Days )
Type: Online

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Tutor: Fiona Benson

Poetry Surgery with Fiona Benson

In-depth 1-2-1 discussion on your poetry with Fiona Benson.

Start Date: July 10, 2021 10.30am
End Date: July 10, 2021 ( 1 Day )
Type: Face-to-Face, Online

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How Online Works

Online courses take place in CAMPUS, our digital platform for poets. CAMPUS is a Social Learning Network (SLN) that lives as part of The Poetry School website, so if you already have an account with us, you can access it straight away.

If you don’t currently have an account with The Poetry School, then you can register for free here.

Our online courses are structured according to regular fortnightly sessions (on average this amounts to 5 assignments over 10 weeks). Some also contain scheduled live chats, a ‘real time’, live-typed chatroom discussion between the tutor and students. Each term we offer a mixture of generative classes (writing new poems), feedback classes (honing old ones) and reading classes (learning more about poetry).

Each online course has its own dedicated private group in CAMPUS. Once you book a course you will automatically be enrolled and be able to access your course group. You will use your course group to post messages, interact with other poets, participate in live chats, submit poems and download assignments and reading lists. Everything is transcribed and kept for you in your group and you will be able to access everything – poems, messages, assignments, live chat transcripts – for as long as you need to.

We have worked hard to make CAMPUS as fuss-free and as close to face-to-face teaching as possible, with the additional benefits of convenience and access that online allows. If you are new to online learning, and unsure about whether it is suitable, please go to our IS ONLINE RIGHT FOR ME? section below.

ARE YOU AN INTERNATIONAL STUDENT?

As well as normal online programme, we also run a small selection of International Courses, which are exactly the same as our other online courses, but don’t contain any live chats or other synchronous learning elements, and are fully accessible regardless of what time zone you live in. Just look out for the ‘International Courses’ label in the course title. (Please also note that our Fortnightly Feedback, Studios and Masterclasses are also fully accessible to international poets).

What will I learn?

Each online course consists of a mixture of reading, discussion and writing exercises to stimulate thoughts, creative expression and technical craft, alongside encouragement and constructive feedback from your tutor and peers on your finished work.

Content will vary course to course, but on all our online 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 (on average 4-5 finished poems per course)
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

We pride ourselves on the standard of our teaching and the poetry produced on every one of our courses. Many of our online 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

The Poetry School offers a wide variety of online courses, and subject matter and structure varies from term to term, so please always check the course information carefully.

We have five main types of online course:

Interactive Courses consist of one assignment posted per ‘session’ every fortnight. (Most courses last for 5 fortnightly sessions over 10 weeks). You will be expected to post poems in response to an assignment, and then feedback on each other’s work in your CAMPUS online group forum. Each session culminates in a 2 hour live chatroom exchange with your course tutor and fellow students, where all the latest poems are examined in a free-flowing, live-typed discussion. All live chats are then transcribed and archived for students to re-read whenever they want. New assignments are posted after each live chat. Class size = 12 maximum.

Note: most our interactive courses are fully adaptable to international students and others who might have difficulty making all the live chats. To find out more information, please email [email protected]

International Courses are exactly the same as Interactive courses, but there are no live chats, making them accessible to students and tutors who live in all international time zones. All feedback and discussion on these courses is written/typed via the private group message board. Class size = 12 maximum.

Transreading courses – co-curated with Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese – invite us to write poems and translations in response to wide readings. Like translators, we read ‘the originals’ closely and intimately in order to transcend cultures, languages, and genres. We read voraciously: poems brought to English by translation, multilingual texts, fiction, nonfiction, drama, archives, ephemera, visual arts. Through trans-reading and trans-writing, we open our poetries to the multi-literate world. Transreading courses, without live chats, are suitable for UK and international students. Class size = 12 maximum.

Fortnightly Feedback courses are a good way to polish up poems-in-progress, and early draft work you are preparing for submission or preparation. Students share and leave written feedback within their CAMPUS online group forum only. There is no live chat component. These courses are suitable for UK & international students. Class size = 16 maximum.

Poetry Studios are short, intensive poetry writing courses that last 3-4 weeks. Unlike our standard 10 week courses, the emphasis on ‘Studios’ is more heavily skewed towards writing and getting words on the page, with a softer focus on group feedback and editing. Class size = 16 maximum.

Masterclasses are 12 week courses with a much deeper consideration of technical craft and critical theory. For advanced students only: fluency with poetic language and ideas will be assumed. There are no live chats and they are suitable for UK and International students. Class size = 10 maximum.

Subject matter and level of ability for each course vary hugely from term to term.

Is Online right for me?

Online courses are open to all students but a basic level of digital literacy is essential. The Poetry School can help you with CAMPUS technical issues, but you need to be a confident user of digital platforms to take part in these classes. To find out whether an online course is right for you, please take our self-assessment quiz.

No specialist software is required – you just need a computer, tablet or mobile device and a wifi connection. All the live chats are typed/written and done in a multi-user chat room on CAMPUS, and due to the fast pace of these sessions, it is recommended you use a laptop or PC, or a tablet/smartphone with a keyboard attachment.

FAQ

Help! I’m having technical problems

Please email [email protected] if you’re having issues with CAMPUS or the Poetry School website. If it’s a local technical issue (i.e., with your computer, not our website) then please seek advice or help from a friend.

What happens if everyone on my course is much better than I am?

‘Better’ is very subjective. Our online courses are designed to be non-partisan, as we believe the best kind of educational experience we can offer is one where all types of student can meet and collaborate meaningfully with one another regardless of how they each self-identify (beginner, amateur, pro). There will be some poets in every group that, even though they have publishing credits, still feel very much like starters. Once you’ve got through the first session, you’ll see how useful, supportive and generous being in a large group of poets of varying levels can be. Many advanced poets also like having new writers in the group, as they tend to have very fresh and original approaches to reading work. All contributions will be extremely welcome.

Will I receive a certificate at the end?

Unfortunately we don’t do those. If you’re interested in something fully accredited, and you’re based in the UK, we do offer a Writing Poetry MA.

I desperately want to do a particular course, but I can’t make the live chats. Can I still do the course?

We’re happy to be flexible with individual course arrangements. Just let us know before or after you’ve enrolled and we will try accommodate you onto your course the best way possible. It’s not always feasible, but we do what we can. If you’re based abroad, then we offer a range of International Courses each term that have no live chats, as well as Feedback, Studio and Online Reading courses.

All our Online Courses

How Online Works

What will I learn?

Course formats

Is Online right for me?

FAQ

Help! I’m having technical problems

What happens if everyone on my course is much better than I am?

Will I receive a certificate at the end?

I desperately want to do a particular course, but I can’t make the live chats. Can I still do the course?

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

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