blog Articles
Summer 2025 – Quick Course Guide
Poetry School Quick Course Guide for Summer 2025 Term
Sim Pereira-Madder
How to: Writing, across the Seasons
In this series, we interview our tutors about poetry and its place in their world. These interviews will cover creative writing tips, excelling in a poetry workshop, building a literary career, and finding your poetic voice. Here’s Tice Cin discussing how to write about Winter. 1. How does the winter season influence your poetry? Do…
Tice
Poetry Queries: Can Poetry Be Taught? with Abbi Parcell
In this series, we interview our tutors about poetry queries. Here’s Abbi Parcell discussing the idea of whether poetry can be taught.
Abbi Parcell
Summit Festival with Poet in Residence, Sammy Weaver
To celebrate our launch of the Laurel Prize 2025, we are proud to present a beautiful blog and four stunning new poems from our Summit Poet in Residence, Sammy Weaver. In October 2024, over two hundred people and over twenty leading poets gathered for Summit, our festival devoted to ecopoetry and nature writing, with our…
Beth Evans (Poetry School)
Explore Place, Fragmentation, and Identity: Transform Your Poetry in 2025
Poetry is a way to explore who we are, where we belong, and a means to create identity and meaning in a fragmented world. This season, we’re offering three transformative courses designed to deepen your craft and perspective: 1. Women, Writing, and Place Use your writing to explore personal identity and the intersections that shape us.In this…
Poetry School
How to: Take Criticism Well with Rebecca Levi
Expert Poetry Tutor Rebecca Levi’s guide on how to take criticism well.
Rebecca Levi
Poetry Queries: Can Poetry Be Taught? with lisa minerva luxx
In this series, we interview our tutors about poetry queries. Here’s lisa minerva luxx discussing the idea of whether poetry can be taught.
lisa minerva luxx
Winter Muse: People & Places
Explore the art of capturing people, places, and character in our Winter Muse: People & Places courses. This Winter Muse series is ideal for for poets aiming to build writing community and explore place and people-centred poetry. You’ll refine your technique, deepen your ability to evoke character, and create striking poems that linger in readers’…
Poetry School
Poetry Queries: Can Poetry Be Taught? with Giulia Ottavia Frattini
In this series, we interview our tutors about poetry queries. Here’s Giulia Ottavia Frattini discussing the idea of whether poetry can be taught.
Giulia Ottavia Frattini
Swallowed Tongues, Quietening Forests
Roshni Gallagher Explores Language, Meaning, Mistranslation and Environmental Crisis in Khairani Barokka’s ‘amuk’.
Roshni Gallagher
Poetry Craft: My Favourite Poetic Device with Simon Barraclough
Simon Barraclough discusses his favourite poetic device.
Simon Barraclough
Fruitful Connections Between Race and Ecology; Jade Cuttle reviews ‘Thinking with Trees’ by Jason Allen-Paisant
Jade Cuttle reviews Jason Allen-Paisant’s collection ‘Thinking with Trees’.
Jade Cuttle
How to: Offer Feedback
Expert Poetry Tutor Elizabeth Parker’s guide on how to offer feedback.
Elizabeth Parker
Poetry Queries: Can Poetry Be Taught? with Sascha Akhtar
In this series, we interview our tutors about poetry queries. Here’s Sascha Akhtar discussing the idea of whether poetry can be taught.
Sascha Akhtar
Spring 2025 – Quick Course Guide
Poetry School Quick Course Guide Spring 2025
Poetry School
Poetry Craft: My Favourite Poetic Device with Eve Grubin
Eve Grubin discusses her favourite poetic device.
Eve Grubin
How to: Taking Criticism Well
Expert Poetry Tutor Natalie Whittaker’s guide on receiving criticism constructively!
Natalie Whittaker
‘Whose Story is it Anyway?’ Exploring Unreliable Narration with Elspeth Wilson
Expert Poetry Tutor Elspeth Wilson discusses narration and masking in your poetry
Elspeth Wilson
How to: Poetry Writing Tips for Beginners
Expert Poetry Tutor Dr Becky Varley-Winter offers priceless pointers for new poets!
Becky Varley-Winter
How I Did It: Forward Prizes – Charlotte Shevchenko Knight on ‘Food for the Dead’
Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2024 ’How I Did It’ series. This year we asked poets shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection to write about the inspiration behind one of the poems from their chosen collection. Here’s Charlotte Shevchenko Knight on what inspired her to write the poem ‘life & no escape’ in Food for…
Charlotte Shevchenko Knight
How I Did It: Forward Prizes – Kelly Michels on ‘American Anthem’
Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2024 ’How I Did It’ series. This year we asked poets shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection to write about the inspiration behind one of the poems from their chosen collection. Here’s Kelly Michels on what inspired her to write the poem ‘Hurricane Season in Virginia Beach’ from American…
Kelly Michels
‘Tender Towards Innocence’ by Carmen Bugan: a blog on Innocence in a Troubled World
Carmen Bugan explains how her new course: ‘A Quest for Innocence in a Troubled World‘ will help you write poetry that faces up to this worrisome time. I borrowed the title of this piece from Seamus Heaney, who has said about Czeslaw Milosz: Tender towards innocence, tough-minded when faced with brutality and injustice, Milosz could…
Carmen Bugan
‘He Do The Police In Different Voices’ by Stephen Komarnyckyj: a blog on Alternative Histories
Stephen Komarnyckyj explains how his new course: Writing Alternative Poetic Histories will help you write poetry that faces up to this difficult moment in history I began to think about the role of poetry during what might be a global war during a Skype call with my cousin in 2022. He was in his cellar…
Steve Komarnyckyj
Blog on our course ‘Making Poetry Happen: Poetry Performance by Women & Gender Nonconforming Artists’
Iris Columb on her forthcoming course ‘Making Poetry Happen: Poetry Performance by Women & Gender Nonconforming Artists’, beginning Thursday 25 January 2024. The Risk of Liveness I attended my first poetry night, by chance, in 2014. It was through watching people share their words with a room full of friends and strangers that I really…
Iris Colomb
Stanzas for Ukraine – 25
The Heat by Fedir Mlynchenko, translated from the Ukrainian by Stephen Komarnyckyj My flight from the war, launched by Moscow against Ukraine, is similar to the stories of millions of other forced exiles. It’s still too painful to even think about and especially to share my recollections.Despite having traversed thousands of kilometres, I still couldn’t…
Fedir Mlynchenko