A Kaleidoscope of Forms: Innovative Poetry in the 21st Century
Formally fruity; throw out your preconceptions and embrace the experimental.
* This course will take place on video-conferencing platform ZOOM *
Learn about innovative, experimental writing and start creating with this accessible and fun course. It will explore different forms and techniques used in 21st-century innovative poetry, with a special focus on poetry created in English by poets of different nationalities, mainly in the UK. It is a general course that will be a good springboard for students to later explore particular forms of 21st-century innovative poetry. The series is aimed at poetry aficionados who want to start writing experimental poetry and at poets who want to branch into innovative forms.
The course will use a mixed format: 40% multimedia-based lecture and 60% workshop. You will create poems in each session and by the end of the course, will have created more than ten new innovative pieces.
We will start writing from day one, with found text as your starting point, before then exploring collage and blackout poetry as inspiration for some erasure poems of your own. Session two will see you exploring typewriter poetry and compact poetry, after which we’ll write several short poems inspired by Chris Stephenson, Stephen Emmerson, and Amy Evans Bauer. During the course, you will also learn about poetry games, interactive poetry, and branching narratives, where we’ll create an interactive branching poem using Twine. Later we’ll explore visual poetry and wordless writing – that’s right, you will learn to write without words! In the final session, we will play with poetry in three dimensions, making an origami poem, and learning more about object poems and the intersection of sculpture, installations, and poetry. Along the way we will expand our knowledge of contemporary poets, including Astra Papachristodoulou, Stephen Emmerson, Karenjit Sandhu, Stephen Mooney, and many more!
5 fortnightly Zoom sessions on Thursdays, 7–9pm (GMT), starts 25 January 2024. To apply for a concession rate, please send relevant documentation showing your eligibility for one of our concessions to administ[email protected]. Conditions of eligibility are detailed here. More information about how our Video Courses work can be found on the Video Courses page. If you have any questions or wish to be added to the waiting list of a sold-out course, please email [email protected].
Image credit: @artistseyes
About Michał Kamil Piotrowski 
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Michał Kamil Piotrowski is a visual poet, text artist, and curator living and working in Folkestone, UK. He mostly writes experimental, visual, and technology-powered poetry. He enjoys making poetry interactive and he often works with found text. The themes that he explores the most are technology, politics, love, and mental illnesses. His interactive book The Cursory Remix (Contraband Books, 2021) has been co-written with Google Translate. Michał has been published in anthologies including The Transformative Power of Tattoo, Sending Nudes, Cry of the Poor, Aww-Struck, and Streetcake Experimental Writing Prize Anthology 2022. His poetry has been published in magazines, such as Streetcake, Perverse, ToCall, and Datableed. His artworks have been exhibited in London and Folkestone and he performed at the European Poetry Festival, Surrey Poetry Festival and Beyond Text Innovative Poetry Festival. His TEDx talk ‘The Power of Experimentation: Poetry for the 21st Century’ is worth watching. Instagram: @somecoolwords
‘Poetry School offers the most-innovative and creative poetry workshops I’ve had the pleasure to attend. The tutors are world-class and the themes and topics varied and interesting. I have gained more confidence in myself as a result of the courses I've taken.’
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