‘Still I Rise’: Poems for Change
Write powerful poems that respond to injustice and strive for change.
* This course will take place on the video-conferencing platform ZOOM *
In April 2011, poet Maria Rivera stood in Mexico City’s main square and read ‘Los Muertos’ (‘The Dead’), a poem that, for one of the first times in public, dared name some of those killed in Mexico’s ongoing drug cartel violence. Since then, the poem has gone viral on social media and has been celebrated and translated by poets across the globe.
In these two sessions, we will explore impactful poems that react passionately to social injustice and horrifying events. We will explore Rivera’s poem, alongside Maya Angelou’s ‘Still I Rise’, Kim Moore’s ‘A Letter To Mr Gove’ (a response to the closure of secondary school music departments), Paul Stephenson’s ‘Public Names’ (a response to the Paris attacks), Jacqueline Saphra’s ‘Leda And The Swan’ (a response to the murder of Sarah Everard), Rip Bulkeley’s ‘Grenfell, 2018’, Roger Robinson’s ‘Slavery Limerick’, ‘Fourteen To One’ and ‘Woke’, as well as a range of poems by the persecuted Uyghur people.
In order to experiment with a range of techniques in our own writing, we will look at how these exemplary poets create effects in their poems, such as the ways they use structure, lists, repetition and traditional forms. Stimulating prompts and writing tasks will inspire us to express our own opinions and concerns through our poetry. We will try using new forms such as coupling (invented by Karen McCarthy Wolf) and, focusing on Roger Robinson, we will explore the striking effect of using light verse forms for serious subjects.
2 x half-day sessions, running 10.30am–1pm (GMT), on 23 & 30 Nov 2024. This course will take place on the video-conferencing platform ZOOM.
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: @polina-kovaleva
About Elizabeth Parker 
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Elizabeth Parker was born in London and grew up in Pygmy Pinetum Garden Nurseries, a garden centre in The Forest of Dean. She lives in Bristol with her partner and two sons. She was a secondary school English teacher for eight years and is writing two novels based on her experiences teaching Shakespeare to teenagers.
Elizabeth’s first full collection, In Her Shambles, was published by Seren Books in April 2018 and her second collection, Cormorant, was published by Seren this February. She is a founding member of Bristol poetry quartet The Spoke, who perform their work at festivals and events. She is also co-host of monthly Bristol poetry event Under The Red Guitar.
Elizabeth is currently experimenting with poetic forms as she works on a long poem about her wonderful father, who has late-stage dementia, and a collection about the life and sudden loss of her sister, the playwright and glorious human being Helen K Parker. Her cormorants continue, as she has just begun to draft a poem titled ‘Helen As Cormorant’.
"I love that I can attend online courses from home and still feel part of a poetry community."
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