Taking a Position: Points of View Studio

First, second, third person; explore how different points of view and narrative positions affect your poems.

In this studio course, we’ll draw on a range of poems to illustrate the effects of different points of view. With one assignment per week, taking a new perspective each time, you’ll be able to experiment with voice in three distinct ways.

Week 1: First person
Who or what is the ‘I’? Is the ‘I’ wandering lonely as a cloud always the poet, or can ‘I’ behave in ways that are not like ‘me’ at all?! The first person position can be all sorts of things, intimate, powerful, and playful.

Week 2: Second person
The second person stance is appealing, offering a sense of intimacy and distance at the same time. Prose writers often find it hard to sustain the second person voice, but do poets fare better? What sorts of subjects might the second person point of view suit?

Week 3: Third person
The third person voice allows for knowledge and lets us move, but how close or omniscient do we choose to be? Do we want to sweep across a landscape, as Dylan Thomas does in Under Milk Wood, or could we paint an intimate picture?

Drawing on a range of materials, including writing guides, prose and poetry, this fast-moving course will get you changing your position at every turn.

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 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, please visit our What to Expect page which includes some further information on how our courses function.

Image credit: @paulglucaci

About Kathryn Simmonds View Profile

Kathryn Simmonds’s third collection, Scenes from Life on Earth, is published by Salt. Her poems have appeared in various publications including Poetry, The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Poetry Review and The Irish Times and, along with her short stories, have been broadcast on BBC radio. Her first picture book, Be my Sunflower is published by Walker Books. She lives in Norwich with her family and has run a number of courses for The Poetry School.

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