Flâneur-ing About: The Poetry of Streets
The meaningful meander; writing the city on the hoof.
How do you feel about getting lost? Do you enjoy wandering the streets? Moving purposefully? Sauntering or resting? What memories connect you to the city and its streets? In this workshop, we will use the figure of the flâneur – or city walker – to think through our attention to the street and its inhabitants. We will consider how to write about the built environment and chance encounters, taking our lead from nineteenth-century French poets including Charles Baudelaire and Jules Laforgue, as well as contemporary poets such as Emily Hasler, Penelope Shuttle, Polly Atkin, and others.
1 full-day session, running 10.30am – 4.30pm (BST), on 29 June 2024. This course will take place at Somerset House, Strand, London, WC2R 1LA. During the day we will step out into the city to spend some time as actual flâneurs and take direct inspiration from the city.
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. More information about how our In-Person Courses work can be found on the In-Person Courses page. If you have any questions or wish to be added to the waiting list of a sold-out course, please email [email protected].
Image credit: @justive_
About SuzannahVE 
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Suzannah V. Evans is a poet based in Bristol. She is the author of Brightwork and Marine Objects / Some Language (Guillemot Press, 2021 and 2020), and the editor of All Keyboards are Legitimate: Versions of Jules Laforgue (Guillemot Press, 2023). A selection of her work appears in the anthology New Poetries VIII (Carcanet, 2021). Her poetry has been broadcast on BBC Radio, performed at international festivals, and awarded a Northern Writers’ Award and the Ivan Juritz Prize for Creative Experiment. She completed her PhD in modern poetry at Durham University.
"The Poetry School has helped me learn about editing my poetry, a really important skill in becoming a better poet. It has also helped me find a creative community, which living abroad now I really value."