Exploring Emotion

Write into your emotions and sensitivities, as we explore pairs of feelings and produce passionate poetry for these emotionally-charged times.

We’ll investigate a range of good and bad feelings in ourselves and others, describing incidents when they arose, what triggers them – from transgenerational trauma to serendipity – as well as exploring their consequences and expressing the lessons they bring. We will personify these emotions and find a colour and place for them; we’ll write in response to visual art, write in the first and third persons to convey self-disclosure and character description.

Throughout the course, we’ll work through pairs of emotions and a range of examples will be included in each assignment for each pairing, alongside suggested prompts to get you inspired and jumpstart your writing. We will discuss poetic forms and techniques as they appear in example poems and how contemporary poets revitalise these. We’ll delve into self-awareness, awareness of characters, and what it means to be human to have positivity and negativity in us at the same time.

We will draw on several poets throughout the course and students are recommended, if they haven’t already, to explore the Bloodaxe anthologies, ed. Neil Astley: Staying Alive (2002), Being Alive (2004), Being Human (2011), and Staying Human (2020). These are not required to participate in the course and are just recommended as excellent collections of emotionally-engaged poetics. Pairings of feelings we will write on will be: Contentment/Bereavement; Hope/Despair; Motivation/Apathy; Surprise/Dislike; Anger/Love. Each fortnight you can choose one of these moods, or describe both in the same poem, and upload your work for online peer and tutor feedback and discussion.

5 fortnightly sessions over 10 weeks, starting 12 Jan 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: @kateryna-babaieva

About Sarah Wardle View Profile

Sarah Wardle has a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing and has published five collections with Bloodaxe Books. She has won the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize and been shortlisted for a Forward Prize. She has published countless book reviews of others’ work. Her writing residencies have included Bedgebury National Pinetum, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, and Transport for London. She has taught in higher education and adult education for over 25 years.

"I have found a new way to get myself to write when inspiration eludes me. It’s all in the practice."

- Summer 2025 Survey Response

The Poetry School