Live Wires: Starting to Write [Spring 2024]
Spark your creativity and take your first steps into the world of poetry!
* This course will take place on the video-conferencing platform ZOOM *
Always wanted to write poetry, but not sure where to start? Then this is the course for you! Explore the world of poetry with inspiring readings of contemporary writers and poets from the past, before developing your own work with in-class prompts designed to tap into your creativity, exploring different themes each week. These themes may include: writing from the senses, memories and emotions; metaphor and simile; writing for the voice; creating poems of time and place; poems of praise; and introductions to a few popular poetic genres and forms.
There will be some gentle sharing and discussion of your writing, led by published poet and experienced tutor, Becky Varley-Winter, to help you find your voice and bring exciting new poems into the world. At the end of each term we will create a literary magazine, featuring any course participants who wish to put their work in print, to give a taste of selecting, honing and editing your poems.
10 weekly Zoom sessions on Wednesdays, 7–9pm (GMT), starts 17 January 2024.
To apply for a concession rate, please send relevant documentation showing your eligibility for one of our concessions to administ[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].
About Becky Varley-Winter 
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Becky Varley-Winter’s first full-length poetry collection, Dangerous Enough, was published by Salt in 2023. She has also published a poetry pamphlet, Heroines: On the Blue Peninsula (V. Press, 2019), was longlisted in the National Poetry Competition 2019, won the T. R. Henn and Brewer-Hall Prizes, and appeared in Poetry Review, Magma, Rising, Finished Creatures, and Tentacular, amongst others. Her other publications are a book on modernist poetry and literary fragments, Reading Fragments and Fragmentation in Modernist Literature (Sussex Academic Press, 2018), and a collection of short fiction, BLOOM (Broken Sleep Books, 2021).
‘A really warm and encouraging course. I have learned a lot, and really enjoyed the scope and variety of poems and themes. I discovered some poets I didn't know before. I wrote several poems resulting from the prompts given. Feedback from the course leader was insightful and constructive, and many of the other students also offered helpful input. Becky was very good at encouraging people to speak, read, and write.’
Finding the Form; Breaking the Mould [Spring 2024]
Intermediate Poetry Workshop with Natasha Hakimi Zapata [Spring 2024]
Wednesday Workshop with Tim Dooley [Spring 2024]