Explore the unconventional in this workshop inspired by one of cinema’s most-influential directors.


For more information and FAQs about how our courses work, please go to our In-Person Courses, Video Courses and Online Courses pages.
Explore the unconventional in this workshop inspired by one of cinema’s most-influential directors.
The pamphlet process, demystified: from putting your first chapbook together to choosing a publisher and how to approach editors.
Inhale and exhale as we explore poetry that challenges, surprises, and catches our breath, and write of breath’s force and beauty.
In-depth 1-2-1 discussion on your poetry with visiting US poet, Jodie Hollander.
Join us to create community through writing, as we explore that difficult topic of loneliness.
Write new poems in response to John Ashbery’s ‘Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror’.
An exciting new advanced workshop group with the innovative Astrid Alben.
An advanced weekly workshop group with the inimitable Mark Waldron.
Make space for gratitude and hope in these trying times as we explore poetry’s power for appreciation.
Hone your craft, explore poetry’s inner workings, and look at techniques to help your poems achieve lift-off.
Challenge yourself, elevate your writing, and take the next steps in your poetry career.
Consider how musicality can create poetic meaning and sound can work as a gateway to the senses.
Mix up your writing, and learn new skills and techniques with Jacqueline Saphra.
Develop your writing through discussion and feedback in this advanced workshop with Anthony Anaxagorou.
Knock your loose poems into shape with some concentrated feedback from poet and editor, Leah Umansky.
Get inside circular forms to see why repeating yourself can be a useful poetic technique.
Flex your imagination and push your craft as we explore the art of poetic storytelling.
Bring your writing to the next level and explore contemporary poetry’s cutting-edge.
Our long-running weekly workshop with Tim Dooley, for poets looking to develop their individual voice and technique.
Spark your creativity and take your first steps into the world of poetry!
Explore Oulipean constraints to shake up your writing practice.
Join us to explore the gristly issues of fathers and fatherhoods as we challenge preconceptions and look for new ways into this vital subject.
Explore this joyous, painful, essential emotion and learn to write ‘from the heart’ without recourse to sentimentality or cliché.
Explore the strengths and weaknesses topicality and reportage in your poetry with celebrated poet and tutor, Glyn Maxwell.
Explore the creative potential of the pamphlet form with expert pamphlet publishers, Guillemot Press.
Our weekly workshop for intermediate poets looking to develop their work.
Join this group for rigorous discussion of your writing with acclaimed poet Richard Price.
Explore the beautiful, ugly, messy world of emotion as inspiration for important new poems.
Explore the sensorial dimension of visual poetry by engaging with the work of some of the most exciting innovative women poets today.
Experiment with chronicling the present moment and refresh your poetic practice as we explore the poetic journal.
Explore travel poems that focus on the journey and how travel can change us.
Join us as we look for the line between intimacy and oversharing, evasion and distance in your work.
Reflect on, and mess about with, time in your poems, as we explore a range of strategies to harness the magic of time in your writing.
Journey from bucolics to contemporary writing to explore experimental Ecopoetry’s radical possibilities.
Explore how the Unconscious can inform our writing, as we break from narrative logic and delve into dreams.
Monthly all-day Saturday workshops with Ros Barber.
Play with, and question, the notion of mistranslation to rethink what it means to communicate through poetry.
Explore the important topic of migration, learning how poetry can be the perfect vehicle to tell stories of movement, settlement, and belonging.
In-depth 1-2-1 discussion on your poetry with poet and editor Romalyn Ante.
Take up a torch and join us as we explore the elemental power of fire as destroyer, life-giver, and re-inventor in your writing.
Explore the relationship between language, space, and silence and see what happens when we let some air into our poems.
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 In-Person Courses, Video 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