Course Quick Guide — Summer 2019

This handy quick guide to our Summer 2019 courses includes a booking link and a short description of everything we’re offering coming term! Click on a course for more information. 

Face-to-Face Courses

London – One and Two-Day Workshops

Mapping Our Lost Haunts with Jean Sprackland

Rediscover the dens, playgrounds and treehouses of your childhood.

Extrasensory Perceptions: Fortean Poetry with Caleb Parkin

Channel poems from phenomena just beyond our understanding.

Translating Form 
(Advanced Masterclass) with Marilyn Hacker

How do non-native forms adapt to the English language?

Go with the Flow with Ahren Warner

Shake up your poems with speed, flow and swerve.

The Big Issues with Katrina Naomi

Tackle the pressing topics of the day and produce new poetry.

Out for the Count: Syllabics with Michael Schmidt

Explore syllabics as a way to give full authority to the poetic line.

Poetic Yield: Taking Your Poem to the Next Level (Advanced Masterclass) with Linda Gregerson

Take a masterclass in rigorously rewriting and revising your poems.

Divine Messengers with Lucy Mercer

Open your poems to the perceptive power of dreams.

Feel the Fear & Write It Anyway with Laura Scott

Take the plunge into the difficult, the dangerous and the daunting.

For the Win: The Poetry of Sport with Rishi Dastidar

Whether casual kick-around to serious competition, let adrenaline and athleticism activate your poems.

The Carer: Poetry of Private & Public Spaces with Denise Saul

How can we reliably provide voices to care-givers and the cared-for?

The Strange Stranger: Animal Poetics with Isabel Galleymore

Cultivate creaturely thinking and fathom the human-animal experience.

London – Short Courses

The Urban Pastoral (Reading Course) with Tamar Yoseloff and Tim Dooley

Stroll the streets and contemplate nature’s role in the life of cities.

Total Syntax: A Crash Course in Grammar, Diction & Phrasemaking with Dai George

Explode the envelope of language to understand syntax, fragmentation, grammar and constraint.

Un-Canon/Ca-NON with Will Harris

Explode the established literary canon, and unearth new multiplicities.

Space, Time: Writing Long Poems & Sequences with Helen Charman

Investigate the structural elements of poems of 40 lines or more.

Exeter

When the Bough Breaks: Writing Childhood, Writing Parenthood with Fiona Benson

Produce new poems on the ever-evolving journey of parenting and being parented.

Birmingham

Self, Place, World with Richard O’Brien

Explore your unique perspective on the world to create new poems.

Bristol

Poetry for Change with Elizabeth Parker

Use relationship between poetry and social justice to create poems that are a force for good.

London – Three Term Courses

Pamphlet / Portfolio with Wayne Holloway Smith

Take your work to the next level and develop your portfolio.

The Poet’s Toolkit with Shazea Quraishi

Explore poetry’s inner workings, hone your craft, and look at various techniques to help your poems achieve lift-off

Advanced Poetry Workshop with Special Guests (Tues AM) with Kathryn Maris

One of our flagship advanced workshops, with the added perk of special guests each term.

Intermediate Poetry Workshop with Tim Dooley

A weekly workshop for poets looking to develop their individual voice and technique, run by the inimitable Tim Dooley.

Poem, Prompt, Pick & Mix with Jacqueline Saphra

Mix up your writing and learn new skills and techniques with Jacqueline Saphra.

Advanced Poetry Workshop with Mark Waldron

Develop your writing through discussion and feedback in this advanced workshop with Mark Waldron.

Advanced Poetry Workshop with Special Guests (Thurs PM) with Kathryn Maris

One of our flagship advanced workshops, with the added perk of special guests each term.

First Encounters with Meryl Pugh

Take your first steps into the world of poetry!

Advanced Poetry Workshop with Richard Price

Develop your writing through discussion and feedback in this advanced workshop.

Saturday Sessions with Ros Barber

Supportive weekend workshops — perfect for those who can’t make a weekday evening.

Online Courses

Interactive

Writers, Retreat with Holly Corfield Carr

Seek creative solace in solitude and silence.

Die Like a Wolf: Poetry & the Non-human with Suzannah Evans

Formulate a new poetic language that transcends the merely human.

‘A great, dark, soft thing’: Poems of the Night with Anna Veprinska

Deep-dive into poetry’s dark side.

Historicising the Prose Poem with Carrie Etter

Trace the prose poem’s origins from Rimbaud to Rankine.

In Praise of Complexity with Stav Poleg

Write poetry that thwarts simplification.

Ancient Tongues & Hybrid Texts with Rowan Evans

Respond to ancient languages, folk culture and myth.

International

Cut-ups & Constraints: Applied Poetry with Rhys Trimble

Manipulate new meanings with cutting, folding, and chance encounters.

Freedom & Form with Rebecca Watts

Discover the levers and mechanisms that power free verse forms.

Writing Self in Poetry with Agnieszka Studzinska

Write your self to find yourself.

Choosing Brave: Feminism & the Written Word with Leah Umansky

Respect existence or expect resistance.

Transreading

Transreading Classical Languages with Wanda O’Connor

Compose fresh responses to Ancient Greek and Latin texts and fragments.

Channel Hopping: A French Exchange with Paul Stephenson

Writing ‘real’ poems inspired by France’s vibrant and diverse poetry scene.

We Cannot Stop the Rumbling Trains: Contemporary Chinese Poetry with David Tait

Rejuvenate your poems with a bold, new wave of Chinese voices.

Studio

Poem(a)s Studio: Reading Contemporary Latinx Poets with Natasha Hakimi

Reinvigorate your poems with the rhythms of Latinx poetry.

Radical Butchery Studio with Sascha Akhtar

Liberate your craft by running amok with the editor’s axe.

The Decisive Moment Studio with Remi Graves

Explore what matters to you most by mining moments of magnitude in your life.

Ghost Writing: Hauntology Studio with James Nixon

Imagine new narratives from history’s spectres.

Masterclass

Inclined to Change: Improv for Poets with Eric Berlin

Stretch your poetic reflexes and exert your sense of play.

Riddlecraft: From Kenning to Canting with MacGillivray

Time-jump a millennium to English poetry’s dawn in Anglo-Saxon riddling.

The Persona Poem with Shazea Quraishi

Say ‘Not I!’ and unleash hidden multiplicities with new creative identities.

Feedback

Fortnightly Feedback with Heidi Williamson

Knock those loose poems into shape with some concentrated feedback.