Absences, Fractures, & Fragments: Using Space in Poetry
Explore the relationship between language, space, and silence and see what happens when we let some air into our poems.
What is the relationship between language and silence? Between words and the white spaces around them? What happens when we increase the amount of space? Or when we use space instead of punctuation?
On this course we will explore poems that explore the absences, the gaps, the fractured and the fragmented. We will experiment with space and silence, and see what happens when we let some air into our poems. We will read from poems by Emily Berry, Wayne Holloway-Smith, Heather Christie, Clint Smith, Mary Jean Chan, Andrew McMillan, and others, as inspiration for new work of our own.
1 full-day session, running 10.30am–4.30pm (BST), on 15 July 2023. This course will take place at Somerset House, Strand, London, WC2R 1LA.
To apply for a concession rate, please send relevant documentation showing your eligibility for one of our concessions to [email protected] Conditions of eligibility are detailed here. More information about how our In-Person Courses work can be found on the In-Person 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: Filip Kominik
About Natalie Whittaker 
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Natalie Whittaker is a poet and secondary school teacher from South East London. Her debut poetry pamphlet, Shadow Dogs, was published by ignition press in 2018. Her second poetry pamphlet, Tree, was published by Verve Poetry Press in 2021. Natalie’s work has also been published in The Valley Press Anthology of Prose Poetry, and #MeToo: A Women’s Poetry Anthology. Natalie was one of the London Library’s Emerging Writers for 2020–2021. She holds an M.A. in Writing Poetry from the University of Newcastle, and both a B.A. and M.A. in English Language and Literature from the University of Oxford. Follow her on Twitter @natalie_poetry
‘It was brilliant to be back in a real-life classroom again. The tutor was excellent; she had lots of useful exercises and information for us and was very warm and engaging.’
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