‘Dear Soul’: Poems from Someone, to Someone
‘Talking to me?!’ Unravelling speakers, readers, poets, and their addressees.
Ever since Shakespeare’s ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,’ poems have thrived by creating a dynamic of a first person, directly addressing a you. But what are the best ways of harnessing the power of direct address, and what strategies does thinking about speaker and addressee open up in a poem?
During this course, we’ll think through lots of options: is the speaker roughly a version of the writer or is the poem consciously taking on another voice – that of a historical or pop culture figure, or even a voice from the natural world or the world of objects? And is the addressee roughly the reader, or is the speaker talking to someone or something else, giving the reader privileged access to intimate communication? Is the poem addressed to a lover, or a pet, or the sun, or is it an impossible message – a letter sent by the poet to someone they couldn’t possibly talk to in the real world? Is the you in the poem mute, or can they react and respond – is this a conversation?
For centuries, poets have been using direct address to dramatise and intensify poems, so that these aren’t just words on a page, but gestures and movements and life in a room. During the course, we’ll read a wide range of masters of this art, from Carol Ann Duffy to Glyn Maxwell to Les Murray, Chen Chen to Marie Howe to Kim Moore, Patience Agbabi to John Donne to Frank O’Hara, seeking to enrich and enliven our own writing by constantly thinking: who’s saying this? Who’s listening?
5 fortnightly sessions over 10 weeks, starting 15 May 2025. No live chats. Suitable for UK & International students.
Concessions & Accessibility
To apply for a concessionary 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]. For more information visit our Online Courses page.
Image credit: @Nur Yilmaz
About Jonathan Edwards 
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Jonathan Edwards’s first collection of poems, My Family and Other Superheroes (Seren, 2014), received the Costa Poetry Award and the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award. It was shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. His second collection, Gen (Seren, 2018), also received the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award, and his poem about Newport Bridge was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2019. He received the Troubadour Prize in 2022. Jonathan has read his poems on BBC radio and television, recorded them for the Poetry Archive, and led workshops in schools, universities and prisons. He lives in Crosskeys, South Wales, and is Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Cardiff University.
"As a deaf poet, I have found the online Poetry School courses ideal for me to participate fully without any barriers to communication in the learning situation. Tutors are enthusiastic, helpful and skilled poets themselves and have fostered a friendly and useful student ethos of mutual support."
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