Writing in the Dark – Poetry for the Waning Year
Summon the poetics of the seasonally sensitive with dark arts, folklore, and myth.
As the year comes to its end and the evenings draw in, we find ourselves drawn to the darkness, in the shape of tall tales and fireside ghost stories. This ten-week poetry course takes inspiration from the arcane and the uncanny to generate new poems, responding to work by poets including Linda Gregg, Mary Karr, James Merrill, Zeina Hashem Beck, Mary Oliver, Safiya Elhillo, Louise Gluck, and Karen MCarthy Woolf.
Each week, participants will respond to existing poems which invoke the strange and supernatural, alongside prompts and exercises taken from folklore, mythology and the tarot. We will also share and workshop work in progress with the group.
This course is perfect for writers with a little experience who would like to embrace the season, and all the pleasures darkness can bring.
Writers will come away with a group of new and workshopped poems, and some new sources of inspiration.
5 fortnightly sessions over 10 weeks, starting 30 September 2025. 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: @adityachinchure
About Jessica Traynor 
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Jessica Traynor is a poet and poetry editor at Banshee. Her debut, Liffey Swim (Dedalus Press, 2014), was shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award. The Quick (Dedalus Press, 2018) was an Irish Times book of the year. Pit Lullabies (Bloodaxe, 2022) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and a Guardian Best Summer Read of 2022. It was shortlisted for the Yeats Society Sligo/ Irish Independent Poetry Prize. Poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The Poetry Review, The Guardian, Poetry London, Basket, bath magg, Bad Lilies, Magma, New England Review, TriQuarterly Review, CopperNickel, The Stinging Fly and Poems on the Underground. She was the 2023 recipient of the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Irish Poetry from the University of St Thomas, Minnesota. She was 2023 Arts Council Writer in Residence in Galway University, a judge for the 2023 Forward Prizes, and is a critic for The Irish Times. Her fourth collection, New Arcana, was published by Bloodaxe in September 2025.
"Every course I have done with the Poetry School has led me to discover new poets both in the assignments and the poetry of the other people on the course. I have been inspired to write new poetry and am in the process of getting some published. Overall a great experience."
Prose for Poets, Poets for Prose
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