First Steps: A Closer Look with Isabelle Baafi – August 2026

Turn everyday details into striking poems in this beginner-friendly workshop exploring voice, perspective, and creative ways into writing.

Welcome to First Steps, our new Beginners Workshop series with Isabelle Baafi! The programme consists of two alternating monthly workshops (‘Finding Inspiration’ and ‘A Closer Look’), running between July and December 2026. This is a series for Beginners, to support your first steps into writing poetry in a friendly and accessible way and open up the exciting world of creative writing for you. Each session is open-to-all and there is no requirement to take either one first. Make sure to check out the other workshop in the series: Finding Inspiration.

Are you new to writing poetry and still unsure about how to find inspiration or hone your voice? Are you interested in the minutiae and hidden details of the world, but looking for guidance on how to turn those observations into poetry? In this fun, interactive, beginner-friendly workshop, we’ll consider the different ‘ways in’ to a poem, and the various modes for using voice, perspective and address to write poems that are fresh, surprising and unique. We will discuss important principles such as Keats’s negative capability, and study poems by Frank O’Hara, Nuar Alsadir, Sharon Olds, Rachel Long and more – poems that animate toys, encounter celebrities, channel animals and follow artefacts across the globe. Through lively discussions and writing prompts, we’ll discover how you can bolster your writing and explore the relationships, totems and habits that have shaped your worldview. Discussions will centre on the themes, techniques and contexts of the poems studied, and the lessons you can draw from them. There will also be time for you to write, share work, ask questions about your writing practice and receive further resources and tips to set you off on your poetry journey.

Tuesday 10 August 2026, 6.30–9.00pm (BST)

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.

About Isabelle Baafi View Profile

Isabelle Baafi is the author of Chaotic Good (Faber & Faber / Wesleyan University Press, 2025), which won the Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection, was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, and is longlisted for the Swansea University International Dylan Thomas Prize. Her pamphlet Ripe (ignitionpress, 2020) won a Somerset Maugham Award and was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice. She won the Winchester Poetry Prize 2023 and has been published in Granta, the TLS, The Poetry Review, Callaloo, The London Magazine, and elsewhere. She edits at Poetry London and Magma.

"Loved the assignments and provided useful, constructive and encouraging support. Definitely helped me improve my craft, raise understanding of other poets/poetry styles and get me writing!"

- Spring 2026 Survey Response

The Poetry School