The Ocean is not a Metaphor – Decolonising the Sea
Join us as we explore, question, and glimpse alternatives to our poetic relationship with blue spaces.
This course invites participants to notice, investigate, and dynamically respond to historical and existing tropes associated with the sea in poetry. It provides an inclusive way of holding and remembering marine environments that shifts focus from the role of humans as perpetrators and lamenters of loss, to ecological collaborators in the present moment. It seeks to diversify and contribute to the literary mode and important environmental phenomenon of climate change writing in a way that holds the potential for co-emergence and co-creation with the natural world. It also recognises that the current human desire to ‘bring back’ lost species is an invitation to respond in interdisciplinary ways to extinction as a cultural phenomenon.
The course acknowledges that, alongside the evolving scientific and ethical considerations that drive marine research, there is a further framework of storytelling and human emotion that generates investment in and connection with blue spaces. Sea poetry and experimentation with the letter-writing form gives participants the chance to write into the past and the future; in this sense, ‘The Ocean is not a Metaphor’ offers participants creative access to a collective need to expiate past generations’ destruction and the opportunity to engage in preventative poetic gestures against climate change.
5 fortnightly sessions over 10 weeks, starting 13 May 2026. No live chats. Suitable for 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: @pspov
About Rosemarie Corlett 
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Dr Rosemarie Corlett is a bilingual author and Lecturer in English and Creative Writing. A versatile professional writer, lecturer, project coordinator, and early career researcher, Rosemarie was Plymouth’s Poet Laureate 2023-2025. Her collection Flightless Bird was released in 2022 with Shearsman Books, and her work has been published with several presses including Guardian, Faber, Poetry Wales, Tears in the Fence, and Iota. She works extensively in the community, and recent engagements include The Racial Equality Council, Plymouth Sound National Marine Park, Global Climate Cafe at Theatre Royal Plymouth, The Children’s University, Plymouth Centre for Cultural Diversity and The Box Museum and Art Gallery. She recently led a major two-year project, ‘Letters to the Sea’: a programme of events and activities which gathered and reflected upon human responses to blue spaces. The anthology of letters, curated and introduced by Rosemarie, will be released in Summer 2026, in partnership with Exeter University and Literature Works.
"The Poetry School keeps me writing and encourages new ways of approaching my work. It's an enormous source of inspiration."
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