Broken Open: Experimenting with Erasure, Fragmentation, Visual, & Translingual Poetry

Making space – poetry of the experimental, visual, and multi-lingual.

What happens when we unmake a text to find a new one inside it? Or when two languages speak at once? Broken Open is a ten-week course in experimental poetic forms, such as erasure and blackout, fragmentation, visual and spatial poetics, and translingual writing.

We’ll begin with fragmentation and erasure, exploring how omission and disruption can open new emotional and political possibilities on the page, and how poetry can act as witness and resistance. From there, we’ll move into visual and spatial poetics, asking how typography, negative space, and the physical arrangement of language can carry meaning that words alone cannot. We’ll close by working with translingual and hybrid language practices, treating the untranslatable as a means of creating something wholly unique.

Throughout the course, we will read and write alongside poets including Ocean Vuong, M. NourbeSe Philip, Layli Long Soldier, Caroline Bergvall, Cathy Park Hong, Cecilia Vicuña, Emily Jungmin Yoon, and Pat Mora. There will be five written assignments across the ten weeks to support students in building a portfolio of experimental work.

By the end of the course, students will have:

Developed practical skills in erasure, blackout, and palimpsestic techniques
Explored fragmentation and visual form as compositional tools
Experimented with translingual and hybrid language practices
Drafted a portfolio of experimental poems
Deepened their understanding of form as expression

This course is suitable for all poets who are excited to experiment with form and language.

5 fortnightly sessions over 10 weeks, starting 6 October 2026. No live chats. Suitable for UK & International students.

Concessions & Accessibility

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. If you have any questions or wish to be added to the waiting list of a sold-out course, please email [email protected].

What to Expect

Please check the left hand side of this page for information on how this course works in practice, under the heading ‘Course Style‘. If you’re unsure as to what any of the terms there mean, or if this course is a good fit for you, please visit our What to Expect page which includes some further information on how our courses function.

Image credit: @zmachacek

About Melanie Hyo-In Han View Profile

Born in Korea and raised in East Africa, Melanie Hyo-In Han recently moved from the U.S. to the U.K. She is the author of Passing Notes in Secret (boats against the current, 2025), Abecedarian: Banff, Canada (kith books, 2025), My Dear Yeast (Milk & Cake Press, 2023), and Sandpaper Tongue, Parchment Lips (Finishing Line Press, 2021), as well as the translator of several collections of Spanish poetry (Hebel Ediciones).

Her work has been supported by fellowships from Gladstone’s Library, The Society of Authors, Sundress Academy for the Arts, Kees Eijrond Foundation, Casa Uno, and Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. She has received awards from The International Human Rights Festival, “Boston in 100 Words,” Valiant Scribe, The Lyric Magazine, and elsewhere.

She holds a PhD in Creative Writing and an MFA in Poetry and Translation. Currently, she serves as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Flora Fiction and the Two Languages Editor at Gasher Press. Learn more about her at melaniehan.com.

"The courses have helped me to develop as a poet and explore different ways of writing. They have given me confidence to submit my work for publication with some small successes!."

- Autumn 2025 Survey Response

The Poetry School