Poetry School One Day Workshops

…Booked your holiday yet?

If your summer’s filling up and you can’t quite wangle a ten week course into your schedule, a one day workshop or evening class might fit the bill: for a short burst of poetry writing before you jet away, here are a few details of what’s on offer …

Crossing the Line with Tamar Yoseloff and David Harker

Join artist David Harker and poet Tamar Yoseloff for this cross-disciplinary day, exploring how lines are created on the page.

‘Crossing the Line’ is designed for both artists and writers who are interested in expanding and enriching their approach. Have you got a visual / poetry collaboration in mind, or want to experiment in both mediums yourself? This day will include both exercises in visual and verbal line making, and a discussion on how a successful collaboration is made between the two genres, using David and Tamar’s work together as an example.

‘Crossing the Line’ will run from 10.30am – 4.30pm on Saturday 6 June, and coincides with David’s exhibition at the Poetry Cafe. The Cafe will be open for a selection of tasty vegetarian lunches, cakes and drinks.

Click here for more information and booking.

The Love Poem in the City with Sean O’Brien

‘Under an arch of the railway / I heard a lover sing’ – W H Auden.

Claim the urban landscape for the romantic imagination for the day in the company of Sean O’Brien. ‘The Love Poem in the City’ will involve reading, writing and urban inspiration to help you craft your sonnets from the ragged streets of London.

Sean O’Brien is a central figure in the contemporary poetry world – he has won major prizes for each of his five poetry collections, including the Cholmondeley Award, the Somerset Maugham award, the E.M. Forster Award and, twice, the Forward Prize for Best Collection. He is also the editor of The Firebox, an acclaimed anthology of post-war UK poetry, a professor of Creative Writing in Sheffield, and the author of literary criticism and journalism for several newspapers and journals.

‘The Love Poem in the City’ will run from 10.30am – 4.30pm on Saturday 20 June. Click here for more information and booking.

Funding for Writers with Gemma Seltzer

If you have an ambitious writing project that’s on hold while you earn enough money to pay the bills, if you are experimenting with digital technology and need some time to really delve in, or if your idea for a spoken word show just needs a little bit of cash to bump start it, then this session is for you.

Designed to inform all types of writers about funding and fundraising, Gemma Seltzer (the Poetry School’s Relationship Manager at Arts Council England) will outline some of the available sources of financial support from ACE and other funders, as well as offer a tailored Q&A session.

‘Funding for Writers’ will take place on Thursday 25 June, between 6.45 – 8.45pm. Gemma will be joined by poets Cath Drake, Hannah Lowe and Inua Ellams, who have successfully received funding for all kinds of exciting literary projects and who will share their experiences of seeking support and the not-so-scary application forms. To enquire about booking, email [email protected].

Dear Diary with Laura Barnicoat and Julia Bird

The Great Diary Project is a social historian’s dream: a repository of unwanted diaries of any date and kind. Project researcher and teacher Laura Barnicoat will take you through a guided tour of the collection’s highlights in search of inspiration, discussing the varied impulses and styles of the personal journal keeper.

Then you’ll work on a series of diary-related reading and writing activities to provide you with enough ideas for a month of Sundays. Expect to be leafing through Larkin, MacNeice, Olds and other diary-lovers, and bring a favourite published diary to work with (real or fictional, anything from Pepys to Bridget Jones). If you’re feeling really brave, bring one of your own!

The current structure of the day looks like this …

* Teenage Innocence
* Who Are You?
* Logbooks and the Quantified Self
* Sex, Secrecy & Code
* Postcards for the Archive

… and – if we’ve got time, depending on how many students enrol –

* Wartime Diaries
* Digital Diaries

For each section of the day, Laura will be introducing you to relevant themed extracts from the Great Diary Project archive, and Julia will be suggesting writing and reading tasks based on those themes.

‘Dear Diary’ will run from 10.30am – 4.30pm on Saturday 27 June. For more information and booking, click here.

If you have any questions about our one day workshops, or would like to have a chat about the details, you can call us at the office on 0207 582 1679.

Stay tuned for similar details on our Summer School, starting in July: a week of festival themed workshops to get you in the celebratory mood.