Lighting the World: Writing in Times of Crisis
How can we write poetry through times of ecological emergency, perpetual war, or personal crises?
* This course will take place on the video-conferencing platform ZOOM *
‘For as long as we have been telling stories, we have been telling stories about war. It’s an unfortunate fact. I saw while reading Homer, so much of Vietnam. So much of displacement. And the same goes with Dickinson, who wrote during the Civil War.’ – Ocean Vuong
‘It is your light that lights the world’. – Rumi.
In these times, when it’s easy to feel powerless, what is our call to action as poets? This 3-term course will guide you through many different approaches to your work and help you to bring truth, craft, and art to your writing, especially when taking in the various challenges we encounter in the world, from the personal to the global.
We will take poetic action by paying attention to what is happening around us – whether it’s birdsong heard from a bedroom window or documenting the violence we see in our near environment and further afield – and bringing our skills as poets to bear on these events. There is much to cherish, and much to strive to change, and poetry is uniquely placed – more than any other artform – to illustrate, inform, and influence the world around us.
Another thing we can do – must do – is to read widely, seeking out the words of writers who speak to experiences we cannot know, and nevertheless connect to through our shared humanity. Along the way, we will take inspiration from poets including Jane Hirschfield, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sean Borodale, WS Merwin, Carolyn Forché, García Lorca, Ilya Kaminsky, Mahmoud Darwish, Jorie Graham, Sarah de Leeuw, Steve Ely, and indigenous poets including Natalie Diaz and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.
Key aspects of this course will be about developing your poetic craft and workshopping your own poems, ensuring that you have the best tools and techniques at your disposal and can work to write powerfully and effectively about the complicated places we each find ourselves in. Join us as we read, discuss, and write new poems, alongside honing your craft and expanding your personal poetics to address the contemporary world.
10 weekly Zoom sessions on Thursdays, 6.45–8.45pm (BST/GMT), starts 23 Jan 2025.
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 Video Courses work can be found on the Video 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: @usgs
About Shazea Quraishi 
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Shazea Quraishi is a Pakistani-born Canadian poet and translator based in London. Her poems have appeared in UK and US publications including The Guardian, Poetry Review, Modern Poetry in Translation & The Hudson Review, and anthologised in Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology, Mapping the Future: the Complete Works Poets, and The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write, among others. Her books include The Glimmer (Bloodaxe Books, 2022), The Taxidermist (Verve Poetry Press, 2020), The Art of Scratching (Bloodaxe Books, 2015) and The Courtesans Reply (flipped eye publishing, 2012).
Shazea is a trustee on the board of English PEN, and on the committee of the Poetry and Spoken Word Group of the Society of Authors. A Complete Works I alumna, she runs workshops with Poetry Studio, and is a tutor with the Poetry School and RHACC School of Ideas. She is also an ongoing artist in residence with Living Words, an arts and literature organisation that works with marginalised people impacted by a dementia or ongoing mental health concerns, www.shazeaquraishi.com.
"First class course - I’ve taken all three of Shazea's courses this year. I value her knowledge her attention and passion."
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