Movement Through the Lines: the Dynamic Poem Studio
Kinetic poetics and the dauntless dynamic.
What does movement imply in a poem? Are we able to perceive it in poetry? How does it function and what does it do? Answering these questions allows us to approach our poetics in a new way that is coming from not just a decolonised consciousness but, in the best case, an anti-colonial consciousness.
Movement can be of any kind – physical, metaphorical, endogenous, exogenous, controlled, chaotic, non-hierarchical, lateral, or even linear. We will explore the topic and take inspiration from an array of poets, including Agha Shahid Ali and his innovation in ghazal forms (movement within parameters) to the startling and powerful work of Suzanne Cesaire, Aimé Césaire, and M. NourbeSe Philip to name a few.
If you’re looking to create daring new poems, full of dynamic movement, then this is the course for you!
Studios are 4-week intensive courses. Reading material will be distributed before the course begins. There are no live chats so they are suitable for both UK & International students.
Concessions & Accessibility
To apply for a concessionary 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, wish to be added to the waiting list of a sold-out course, or require any form of adjustment to access our courses, please email [email protected]. For more information visit our Online Courses page.
Image credit: Jason Leung
About Sascha Akhtar 
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Sascha Akhtar is a CW lecturer at the University of Greenwich. She performs internationally, some highlights include the Medway Festival of Literature 2023, Emirates Festival of Literature 2022 and Rotterdam Poetry Festival 2012. Latest writings appear in Shuddhasar Free Voice, Deleuzine, Rivista journal Prototype Annual 4, Cut-Purse (Tangerine Press), Of Myths and Mothers anthology 2022, and Lucy Writers Platform. New books are ∑Void Song∩ ≠ Futurepast Sequence Of,… Intergraphia Press and a book of translations from Urdu with Oxford University Press (2023). Akhtar has received an Honorable Mention for the 2024 A.K. Ramanujan Prize for book translations from South Asian languages into English awarded by the Association for Asian Studies.
Her other six poetry collections, include The Grimoire of Grimalkin, (SALT, 2007), The Whimsy of Dank Ju-Ju (Emma Press 2019), and the innovative tarot deck of poetry Only Dying Sparkles (Zimzalla 2018). Akhtar has been facilitating teachings in magical practice and poetry at the Poetry School exclusively since 2018.
"The Poetry School courses that I have attended have been top quality. I have learnt a great deal not only from the poetic aspects of the courses, but also about the tutor's area of expertise (including architecture, museums, insects, cinema). The way in which each field of knowledge was woven into reading and composing poetry has inspired me to take my own poems to another level, incorporating a wide range of subjects into my work."
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