Summer Programme Articles
Break the Rules: Experimental & Playful Poetry
For young creatives, literary rebels, and experimental poets, these workshops challenge you to push the boundaries of poetry, embrace unconventional techniques, and play with form in exciting new ways. Ideal for experienced poets and alternative thinkers who are ready to break the rules and redefine poetry itself. Poems After Poems: Writing Ars Poetica – Leah…
Poetry School
Poetry for Change & Personal Growth: Writing in Crisis & Finding Your Voice
Poetry has the power to heal, resist, and transform. Whether you’re writing to navigate personal challenges, address global crises, or find an expressive outlet, our workshops provide the space, support, and expert guidance to help you craft the best poetic response. Lighting the World: Writing in Times of Crisis – Shazea Quraishi Explore how poetry…
Poetry School
Freedom in Form: Challenge Your Poetry Boundaries
Are you ready to break free from traditional structures and explore the possibilities of poetry? Our Freedom in Form workshops are designed for poets who want to experiment, challenge conventions, and embrace forms of expression. This is your chance to redefine your creative process and take bold steps in your creative practice. With a focus…
Poetry School
Unsticking a Stuck Poet: Overcoming Writer’s Block
Feeling stuck? Our Unsticking a Stuck Poet workshops are designed for writers in need of fresh inspiration. These workshops provide practical strategies, prompts, and exercises to help you get back into your writing flow. Whether you’re looking for ways to break through mental barriers or just need a little guidance to get started, these courses…
Poetry School
Food, Family & Poetry: Writing Memory Through the Senses
Ready to explore the power of memory and sensory writing? Our Food, Family & Poetry workshops are designed for poets looking to connect deeply with history, storytelling and memory, exploring how the senses shape the stories we tell. COURSES: Around the Table: Writing about Food & Family with Romalyn Ante Explore how food and family…
Poetry School
Poetry as Response: Transreading & Translating
For poets interested in translation, transreading, and poetic response, these workshops explore how poetry can be transformed, adapted, and reimagined across languages and cultures. Learn to engage with poetry in new and dynamic ways, responding to existing works with fresh interpretations. Transitions, Translations, Transformations, Transreading – Carmen Bugan Explore the interplay between reading, translation, and…
Poetry School
Summer 2025 – Quick Course Guide
Poetry School Quick Course Guide for Summer 2025 Term
Sim Pereira-Madder
‘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
What Is Revolutionary Poetics? by Mischa Foster Poole
Here is Mischa Foster Poole talking about his course Revolutionary Poetics: Writing Against the Grain; Alternate art; busting open the poem to embrace new and experimental forms. (5) This is because the tools that we have to hand are provided by the hegemonic ideology, the mode of production that seeks to ideologically reproduce itself through the…
Mischa Foster Poole
‘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
Writing My Sister
My sister died suddenly on 5 April. This blog was going to be about the ways I get myself writing. The analogies I find helpful. Tech, for example: harder to reboot, better to keep it going all the time, in any way you can. Remind yourself you are writing a lot of the time. Remind…
Elizabeth Parker
Snapshot on: Becky Varley-Winter’s Live Wires: Starting to Write
Our Beginner’s course ‘Live Wires: Starting to Write’ with Becky Varley-Winter recently completed another term and Becky has put together a zine to showcase the students’ best work, which you can see extracts of below. The next iteration of this course will take place in our Summer 2022 Term (running 12 May – 14 July)….
Becky Varley-Winter
Taking the Piss Flower: on the pitfalls of writing poems inspired by art, and bringing something new to the party
Ekphrasis is one of those poemy words poets assume everyone knows, like villanelle, and pantoum; but my Mac doesn’t recognise it, flags it up, and takes me to Wiki – ‘an ekphrastic poem is a poem inspired or stimulated by a work of art’. I remember feeling so happy when I first discovered the word,…
Claire Collison
Transreading Ethiopia with Chris Beckett
Selam hullu…..Hello everyone! I’ve already blogged about my boyhood in Addis Ababa as an intro for my autumn 2021 course on Childhood: A Source of Praise. So I don’t want to repeat too much of what I said then, but it feels like I’m travelling the same path again! It’s a really great feeling, because…
Chris Beckett
Writing After David Lynch – Students’ Poem
The Writing After David Lynch ten-week course took us all on a thrilling and mysterious journey across David Lynch’s films. As part of the penultimate session, on Mulholland Drive, I invited the students to respond to Naomi Watts’ staggering audition scene with a single four-line stanza, that I would then order and curate into a group poem. I took inspiration…
Chrissy Williams
A Long Drink for a Hot Day: an Interview with Holly Hopkins
An Interview with Holly Hopkins
As the Summer days draw out, and the festivals, parties, barbeques and celebrations continue, Holly Hopkins will be inviting students to look at some of the best booze-inspired poetry – and to create some of their own – on her Summer School workshop ‘A Long Drink for a Hot Day’ . We caught up with…
Poetry SchoolSurprised by Joy: an Interview with Dai George
An Interview with Dai George
In his Summer School workshop ‘Surprised by Joy’ this term, Dai George will be exploring the challenges and possibilities of writing from feelings of happiness, wonder and joy. We had a chat to find out more … Hello Dai – tell us about your Summer workshop. What do you have planned? It’s called ‘Surprised by…
Poetry SchoolCelebrate Your History: an Interview with Nick Field
An Interview with Nick Field
How can poetry express the joys, sensations and narratives of shared celebrations? In his new Summer School workshop ‘Celebrate Your History’, artist and writer Nick Field will be working with students to use autobiography to create powerful, joyful poems. We caught up with Nick to find out more… Hi Nick! Tell us a bit about…
Shane RounceA Festival of Opposing Forces: Interview with R A Villanueva
An Interview with R A Villanueva
R A Villanueva’s upcoming Summer workshop, ‘A Festival of Opposing Forces’, will be a celebration of unlike things, thinking about poems as spaces to memorialize, illuminate, and make new. We caught up with the poet and asked him a few questions about what the day will have in store… Tell us more about your Summer…
Shane RounceMixed Borders: Who’s Where
Open Gardens Squares Weekend is just around the corner! On Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 June, you can explore over 200 private, secret and tucked away gardens across London. Our Mixed Borders Poets have taken up residence in 16 of the Open Gardens dotted across London. They’ve been visiting their gardens for the last month…
Poetry SchoolCall and Response: an Interview with Rishi Dastidar
An Interview with Rishi Dastidar
As part of our festival themed Summer School this July, poet Rishi Dastidar will be running ‘Call and Response’, a workshop based around writing poetry from music. We caught up with Rishi to find out more … Hi Rishi! Tell us a bit more about your Summer School workshop, Call and Response – what do…
Poetry SchoolFestival Season: A Glimpse at our Summer School
Our Summer School is designed so that students can fit in one last blast of poetry writing before the holidays: for a whole week in July, we’ll be running a series of workshops, some for a full day, some for the morning or the afternoon, so that you can fit them in around your packing…
Poetry SchoolKeep On: an Interview with Clare Shaw
An Interview with Clare Shaw
Starting on Thursday 11 June in Manchester, ‘Keep On’ will help poets at any level who are in need of a little fuel and maintenance to keep writing. We had a chat with tutor Clare Shaw about the upcoming course, and her thoughts on what to do when the poems aren’t coming … Hi Clare!…
Shane RounceEpiphanies and Other Movable Feasts: an Interview with Nichola Deane
An Interview with Nichola Deane
Part of our festival themed Summer School this July, Nichola Deane’s workshop Epiphanies and Other Movable Feasts will look at the ‘architecture of moments’ that make up our lives. We caught up with Nichola to find out more about what she has planned… Hi Nichola, tell us more about your workshop…what’s it all about? ND:…
Poetry SchoolPoetry 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…
Poetry School