‘Tantalising Vagueness’: Intimacy & Distance in Poetry
Join us as we look for the line between intimacy and oversharing, evasion and distance in your work.
* This course will take place on the video-conferencing platform ZOOM *
Some poets are very accomplished at widening and narrowing the narrative lens, whereas others leave their readers in the wilderness. If you’re interested in exploring different approaches to luring in your readers – or learning how to effectively distance them, and why that might be desirable – alongside how these techniques can be harnessed to help frame and convey emotional content, losses and desires, then this course is for you.
Join us as we look for the line between intimacy and oversharing, evasion and distance, asking why do some poems and images repel us, while others take us by the lapel and refuse to let go?
Throughout the course we will read poems by Tara Bergin, Jennifer Copley, Jonathan Davidson, Matthew Dickman, Ted Hughes, Rosie Jackson, Philip Larkin, Louis MacNeice, Ezra Pound, Denise Riley, Iain Crichton Smith, Wallace Stevens, Edward Thomas, amongst others. If you would like to delve deeper into how poems effectively engage with their readers and explore how you can use these techniques of intimacy and distance in your own writing, then join us for this exciting new course!
5 fortnightly Zoom sessions on Wednesdays, 7–9pm (BST), starts 24 May 2023. 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:Nick Moore
About Suzanne Conway 
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Suzanne Conway is a poet, writer and teacher. Her poems are published in Acumen, The Poetry Review, The Dark Horse, The North, The Rialto, The Moth, Ambit, Newspaper Taxis: Poetry after the Beatles (Seren), The Result Is What You See Today: Poems about Running (Smith|Doorstop), and elsewhere. She is teaching Literature at The University of Exeter while working towards a Ph.D in Creative Writing. She is writing a collection of poetry alongside the critical commentary: ‘Tantalising Vagueness’ – Intimacy and Distance in the Poetry of Edward Thomas. She has taught creative writing for sixteen years at GCSE, A Level and university level. See www.suzanneconway.co.uk for more details.
‘The Poetry School has taught me more about writing poetry. Its strength is its range of tutors engaged in the practice of poetry (rather than poetry as an academic discipline) and the nurturing community of students it attracts.’
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