Dissolving Polarities with Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge Masterclass
Against closure – writing like you’re not sure if you mean it.
‘If all my books were in a room together, they wouldn’t know each other’ – Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge
Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge’s poetry is often associated with long lines, metaphysical perspectives, and language that pushes meaning into new directions, revealing complex landscapes of inner and outer worlds. In an interview for Bomb Magazine, she says ‘I try to expand a field by dissolving polarities or dissolving the borders between one thing and another.’ I am drawn to the word dissolving as a matter of practice, as a way of thinking, a conceit, even as a language that in its dissolving forms experiences in the practice of reading and writing.
The premise of the course: ‘Dissolving Polarities,’ explores these ideas. We will consider Berssenbrugge’s poetry in her collection Hello, the Roses, Nest, and I Love Artist, to help shape and develop our writing. By responding to Berssenbrugge’s poetry, we will question how to make our lines longer, how to collage our writing, and experiment with the way we write, and with the way we think about our writing.
This course is for anyone who is prepared to take a leap of ‘uncertainty’ and invite the porous nature of language into their work. Like Berssenbrugge, we will work with the notion of contingency to create; and as the speaker in her poem ‘Texas’ reveals ‘play a form of feeling out to the end’.
5 fortnightly sessions over 10 weeks, starting 21 September 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: Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Hello, the Roses, 2013, book cover, New Directions Publishing.
About Agnieszka Studzinska 
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Agnieszka Studzińska has a PhD in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway University of London. She also holds an MA in Creative Writing from the UEA. Her debut collection, Snow Calling was shortlisted for the London New Poetry Award 2010. Her body of poetry includes What Things Are (Eyewear Publishing 2014), Branches of a House (Shearsman Books 2021) and her forthcoming collection Seamless will be out in 2026. She has had several poems anthologised and featured in Writing Motherhood (ed. Carolyn Jess Cooke), Wretched Strangers, Borders Movement Home, (ed. Agnes Lehóczky), and numerous magazines. She teaches Creative Writing for the Poetry School and other educational institutes.
"I have taken several courses with Agnieszka and she never disappoints. The tasks are always well prepared and imaginative, a good selection of poetry included, and her response is supportive with an element of challenge."
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