About Us

The Poetry School was founded in 1997 by three poets - Mimi Khalvati, Jane Duran and Pascale Petit with the aim of providing structured, high quality teaching programmes for adults to develop their poetry from its beginnings through to advanced level.

Originating in London, the Poetry School has grown into the only major national organisation whose sole focus is teaching the art of writing poetry. With established teaching centres throughout England as well as online courses and downloadable courses and activities, the Poetry School is unique in its ability to reach and develop aspiring poets wherever they may be.

Our Vision and Mission

The Poetry School exists to nurture poetic talent and support the development of poets in aid of a dynamic, diverse and popular contemporary poetry for readers and audiences everywhere.

We believe that this vision is best realised through a strong connection and engagement with the grassroots of poetry in Britain and beyond. This is reflected in our mission:

To create and deliver a dynamic, responsive and high quality programme of unparalleled breadth and reach that brings poets of all levels together as teachers, students and peers in order to create, experiment, improve; and to share their poetic practice within an inclusive and supportive critical community of writers and readers, dedicated to nurturing original new voices in contemporary poetry.

Values

The Poetry School is a grassroots poetry organisation run by poets, poetry promoters and poetry lovers. A passion for the art of poetry and those who want to write it is at the heart of everything that we do. We believe that by addressing the artistic and professional needs of poets through our various programmes we can make a difference to the quality and diversity of contemporary poetry, ensuring its continued vitality and relevance within cultural life. We aim to make sure that anyone with an interest in reading or writing poetry can get involved, an approach embodied through our values below:

Opportunity – We are committed to creating opportunities for poets of all levels to improve their craft, develop their professional skills and experience, and connect with readers.

Quality – We aim to provide educational resources, activities and environments of the highest quality, with multiple points of access and recognised pathways for the development of poetic practice.

Community – We aim to foster and nurture a sense of community amongst all our poets, both in a live setting and online.

Specialist expertise –Our focus is poetry. We are independent of institutions and publishers but love to collaborate with them. Working with so many professional poets means we have a huge pool of talent, expertise and knowledge invested within our programme. 

Experimentation – The Poetry School is not about teaching ‘poetry by numbers’. Though as poets we are writing in a tradition, we encourage experimentation in poetry in order to vitalise both individual poets and the art form itself. This can take the form of original experimentation, or an experimental approach that is new to a particular individual. We believe in pushing our students to explore new territories in their writing.

Innovation – We are dedicated to the innovation of our program to best meet the needs of poets. We believe that innovation is best achieved through creating the conditions/environment in which dialogue and collaboration can take place. We want the Poetry School to both reflect and to help drive forward the agenda of contemporary poetry.

Inclusion and Respect – All interested in poetry are welcome to participate whatever their level of knowledge or experience. The Poetry School operates a ‘broad-church’ policy towards its programming and avoids factionalism. A culture of constructive critical support is fostered and nurtured.

Commitment to education – We are committed to poets’ creative development and we develop our programming to reflect this. We embrace new pedagogical approaches to teaching poetry and we are committed to creating new ways that people can access poetry education that suit their specific requirements and circumstances.

Diversity – We aim to represent the broad diversity of contemporary poetry in our teaching and programming, believing that this leads to the development of new original voices in poetry.

Enjoyment – Discovering and developing your own talent with words in the company of other poets, what could be more fun?