Monthly all-day Saturday workshops with Ros Barber.


For more information and FAQs about how our courses work, please go to our Face-to-Face Courses, Online Courses and Downloads pages.
Monthly all-day Saturday workshops with Ros Barber.
Consider poetic and empathetic responses to human fragility, illness, and mortality.
Rummage through the archives with Khairani Barokka to inspire new historically-minded poems.
In-depth 1-2-1 discussion on your poetry with Will Harris.
2020’s been rough; so, let’s look to the bright side and explore happy poems with Katrina Naomi!
Unearth the uncanny, as we exhume the secrets of contemporary Gothic writing.
Trace the long cultural trail of Dada before turning its tools onto contemporary problems.
Bring your ears to the water and take inspiration from the natural, and manmade, sounds of the deep.
Move beyond simple nostalgia to explore childhood, and writing the ‘child self’, on its own terms.
Learn the skills, tricks, and turns needed to truly master the sestina!
In-depth 1-2-1 discussion on your poetry with Timothy Donnelly.
Learn to outwit, cajole, and break free from syntax to transcend poetic writing and produce true works of art.
Find your ‘big idea’ and get to work on a propulsive new sonnet sequence with an expert in the field!
A collaborative dreaming and writing un-workshop.
Join us for an inspiring day of reading, writing, and discussion, alongside some practical exploration of lichens!
The Poetry School’s teaching year runs over three ‘terms’ – Autumn, Spring and Summer. Each term we offer around 40-50 courses and workshops that cater to a variety of levels, varying in length and subject matter. The course programme changes every term with more new courses, workshops and tutors, but often includes courses that run over three terms and popular repeats.
We offer both ‘classroom’ teaching (UK) and ‘virtual’ teaching (international). You can visit our Face-to-Face Courses and Online Courses pages for more detailed information about course structures, process and what to expect.
Most of our courses and workshops accommodate writers with a wide range of experience, but some are specifically designed for beginners or more practicised poets.
Here are our definitions:
Our programme is developed around these three teaching levels, although we also offer many courses that are Open to all – courses aimed at all levels, often focusing on a specific theme or inspirational subject matter.
‘Literary work in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by the use of distinctive style and rhythm’ – OED
‘Poetry is a heightened imagistic use of language that does things to the heart and head’ – Grace Nichols
‘A made thing, a verbal construct, an event in language’ – Edward Hirsch
‘Poetry is memorable speech’ – W H Auden
‘Poetry does not explain life. It gives life to feeling and seeing’ – Sarah Stetie
‘Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not’ – Samuel Johnson