Radical Rhythms
Explore the effects of poetry's metrical engine as we listen closely to language.
* This course will take place on the video-conferencing platform ZOOM *
Every poem is a piece of music; every line has its own rhythm. In this fortnightly course, you’ll learn how to listen to language more closely and explore ways of using rhythm and cadence to create spellbinding effects in your own work.
The course will begin with a whirlwind tour through the origins of different kinds of rhythm: where did these patterns come from, what do they do, and why do we use them? Mischievous and light on jargon, this “Spotters’ Guide” approaches rhythm and metre from first principles and is guaranteed to be livelier than anything you might have been taught about metre in school.
After that introduction, the course we will move on to look at how various poets of the 20th and 21st Century have created new kinds of music by developing or subverting familiar rhythmic tricks and weaving new patterns of their own. We’ll read these poems with a magpie’s eye, looking for brilliant techniques to pinch. Along the way, a series of hands-on writing games in each session will help to build up your own rhythmic toolkit, with optional writing prompts for additional exercises to try between workshops.
Authors discussed in these sessions will include William Shakespeare, Fran Lock, Gwendolyn Brooks, Shane McCrae, WH Auden, Jorie Graham, Edna St Vincent Millay, Michael Donaghy, and Abigail Parry.
5 fortnightly Zoom sessions on Thursdays, 7–9pm (BST/GMT), starts 9 Oct 2025.
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, then please take a look at our What to Expect page which includes some further information on how our courses function.
Image Credit: @Олександр К
About Tristram Fane Saunders 
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Tristram Fane Saunders is the author of Before We Go Any Further (shortlisted for the 2024 Seamus Heaney Prize), and editor of Edna St Vincent Millay: Poems and Satires. His poems have appeared in journals including The TLS and The White Review, and he has judged the Forward Prizes and Costa Prize for Poetry. He was The Telegraph’s poetry critic from 2017-2024, has reviewed poetry for Radio 4’s Front Row, and is currently a Fellow Commoner in the Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge.
"I've made some new friends, and produced lots of new and interesting poems (some of which I used to complete a recent masters, with a very pleasing result)."
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