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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

The Bright Field: Poetries of Personal Faith

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Tutor: Kathryn Simmonds

The Bright Field: Poetries of Personal Faith

How can we write poems of genuine faith in an increasingly disingenuous world?

Start Date: January 11, 2022
End Date: April 5, 2022 ( 85 Days )
Type: Online

Beyond Words: Transreading Experimental Latin American Poetries

£118.00 *

Tutor: Leonardo Boix

Beyond Words: Transreading Experimental Latin American Poetries

Explore the dynamic world of 20th Century Latinx poetry as inspiration for new poems and translations of your own.

Start Date: January 11, 2022
End Date: March 22, 2022 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

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Tutor: Richard Georges

Echoing Forms: Masterclass

Use choruses, repetition, and other techniques to create echoes and resonances that amplify.

Start Date: January 12, 2022
End Date: April 6, 2022 ( 85 Days )
Type: Online

Exercises in Potential Literature: Transreading Oulipo

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Tutor: Sue Burge

Exercises in Potential Literature: Transreading Oulipo

Explore Oulipean constraints to shake up your writing practice.

Start Date: January 12, 2022
End Date: March 23, 2022 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

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Tutor: Rhys Trimble

Bardics: A Poetics of Shamanism

Explore Shamanic poetic practices to learn how to bring the Bardic into your writing.

Start Date: January 12, 2022
End Date: March 23, 2022 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

'This peculiarly mind-entangling beat': Ritual, Magic, & Mythology

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Tutor: Sascha Akhtar

'This peculiarly mind-entangling beat': Ritual, Magic, & Mythology

Explore poetry’s origins in oral magic and myth to begin groundwork for your own grimoire.

Start Date: January 14, 2022
End Date: April 8, 2022 ( 85 Days )
Type: Online

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Tutor: Emma Bolland

Expanded Screenwriting as Poem Form

Experiment with the possibilities of screenwriting and scripts as a form for your poetry.

Start Date: January 14, 2022
End Date: March 25, 2022 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

Writing About Writing: What Am I Doing Here?

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Tutor: Lily Blacksell

Writing About Writing: What Am I Doing Here?

Reveal your hand, show your face, and rise from your poems’ surfaces to ask what you’re doing, and why?

Start Date: January 17, 2022
End Date: March 28, 2022 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

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Tutor: Caleb Parkin

Thingly Power: (In)Animate Studio

Discover your sensuous side and write poems exploring the radiant materiality of curious objects

Start Date: January 17, 2022
End Date: February 14, 2022 ( 29 Days )
Type: Online

Fortnightly Feedback with Shivanee Ramlochan

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Tutor: Shivanee Ramlochan

Fortnightly Feedback with Shivanee Ramlochan

Knock your loose poems into shape with some concentrated feedback from poet and essayist, Shivanee Ramlochan.

Start Date: January 17, 2022
End Date: April 4, 2022 ( 78 Days )
Type: Online

A Slice of Butterworth-Toast: Writing Poems for Children

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Tutor: Rachel Piercey

A Slice of Butterworth-Toast: Writing Poems for Children

Write new poems for children, inspired by Charles Causley.

Start Date: January 17, 2022
End Date: March 28, 2022 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

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Tutor: Jodie Hollander

Reading & Writing Robert Frost

Closely examine the work of Robert Frost to take inspiration from one of poetry’s true masters.

Start Date: January 17, 2022
End Date: March 28, 2022 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

'Let my poems wash away your treachery': Transreading Georgian Poetry

£118.00 *

Tutor: Rebecca Ruth Gould

'Let my poems wash away your treachery': Transreading Georgian Poetry

Dive into the unexplored world of Georgian modernism and learn how these writers forged poetry from political oppression.

Start Date: January 17, 2022
End Date: March 28, 2022 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

Transreading Ukrainian Poetry: ‘a crimson bush amidst silence’

£118.00 *

Tutor: Steve Komarnyckyj

Transreading Ukrainian Poetry: ‘a crimson bush amidst silence’

Explore one of the world's greatest neglected literatures with expert Steve Komarnyckyj.

Start Date: January 19, 2022
End Date: March 30, 2022 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

Location, Location, Location: Countries of the Mind

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Tutor: Catherine Smith

Location, Location, Location: Countries of the Mind

Develop your own ‘poetry of place’ as we explore the poetic possibilities of, real and imaginary, locations.

Start Date: January 19, 2022
End Date: March 30, 2022 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

'What will I do now, with my hands?' – Writing Queer Sex

£118.00 *

Tutor: Remi Graves

'What will I do now, with my hands?' – Writing Queer Sex

Learn to write directly, imaginatively, tenderly, and fearlessly about the different shapes, tastes, and textures of queer sex.

Start Date: January 19, 2022
End Date: March 30, 2022 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

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Tutor: Gboyega Odubanjo & Cai Draper

Forms of Family

Consider what it means to write about family, as we experiment with different ways to approach this sometimes-thorny topic.

Start Date: January 20, 2022
End Date: March 31, 2022 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

Writing Emotion: Contemporary Confessional Poetry

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Tutor: Rebecca Tamás

Writing Emotion: Contemporary Confessional Poetry

Explore the beautiful, ugly, messy, and raw world of emotion as inspiration for important new poems.

Start Date: January 20, 2022
End Date: April 14, 2022 ( 85 Days )
Type: Online

Persian Poetry Through the Ages: From Rumi & Hafez to Forough Farrokhzad & Kaveh Akbar

£118.00 *

Tutor: Natasha Hakimi Zapata

Persian Poetry Through the Ages: From Rumi & Hafez to Forough Farrokhzad & Kaveh Akbar

Take inspiration from a poetic tradition filled with imaginative verse and spanning more than eight centuries.

Start Date: January 21, 2022
End Date: April 1, 2022 ( 71 Days )
Type: Online

Carnival & the Masks of Bacchanal Studio+

£108.00 *

Tutor: Fawzia Kane

Carnival & the Masks of Bacchanal Studio+

Displace poetic hierarchies and revel in hedonistic Carnival-style freedom in your poetry.

Start Date: February 15, 2022
End Date: March 22, 2022 ( 36 Days )
Type: Online

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Tutor: Danne Jobin

The Cut & Paste Studio

Explore poetry and collage to expand your practice and open up new avenues for mixed-media writing.

Start Date: February 28, 2022
End Date: March 28, 2022 ( 29 Days )
Type: Online

Writing the Holocaust: Memory, Ethics, & the Limits of Imagination Studio+

£108.00 *

Tutor: Anna Veprinska

Writing the Holocaust: Memory, Ethics, & the Limits of Imagination Studio+

Consider how we might ethically approach the Holocaust in our writing and what it means to write this topic today.

Start Date: March 1, 2022
End Date: April 5, 2022 ( 36 Days )
Type: 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.

The Poetry School

Online Courses

Learn poetry anywhere in the world

All our Online Courses

The Bright Field: Poetries of Personal Faith

Beyond Words: Transreading Experimental Latin American Poetries

Echoing Forms: Masterclass

Exercises in Potential Literature: Transreading Oulipo

Bardics: A Poetics of Shamanism

'This peculiarly mind-entangling beat': Ritual, Magic, & Mythology

Expanded Screenwriting as Poem Form

Writing About Writing: What Am I Doing Here?

Thingly Power: (In)Animate Studio

Fortnightly Feedback with Shivanee Ramlochan

A Slice of Butterworth-Toast: Writing Poems for Children

Reading & Writing Robert Frost

'Let my poems wash away your treachery': Transreading Georgian Poetry

Transreading Ukrainian Poetry: ‘a crimson bush amidst silence’

Location, Location, Location: Countries of the Mind

'What will I do now, with my hands?' – Writing Queer Sex

Forms of Family

Writing Emotion: Contemporary Confessional Poetry

Persian Poetry Through the Ages: From Rumi & Hafez to Forough Farrokhzad & Kaveh Akbar

Carnival & the Masks of Bacchanal Studio+

The Cut & Paste Studio

Writing the Holocaust: Memory, Ethics, & the Limits of Imagination Studio+

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?

Find a Course