Face to face

A Winter Book, of Anonymity: five meditations on silence, service, stone. In writing, reading, talking poetry, we’ll try not to be busy about it, simply let it be. This term will give you practical advice and supportive critical responses to your work, and the courses are open to everyone, no matter how little or large your experience of poetry may be.

This course is ideal for those wanting to reawaken a love of words, to explore the musicality of language and to develop confidence as a writer. Each session includes writing games and exercises to get you going, and discussion and analysis to develop your work beyond that initial spark. You will receive regular feedback and will have the chance to develop the reading/performance skills essential for any poet wanting to reach an audience. Designed to stretch and inspire writers of all levels.

*You can enroll in this course even if it has already started.

This course is for anyone wishing to take a dive into the fascinating world of words. Each session will include writing games and exercises to invigorate the imagination, and readings and discussion of contemporary poetry to help inspire new writing. Feedback will be given to help develop your work beyond the draft stage and set you on the path to publication and/or performance.

*You can enroll in this course even if it has already started.

Read, write, share and enjoy poetry - each session offers the opportunity to read and discuss poets’ response to a theme, including senses, objects, voices, surprises and journeys, through poetry from a wide range of origins. Inspiring and stimulating activities encourage and support you in exploring the theme in your own poetry before sharing it with others in the group. Beginners and more established readers and writers of poetry are all welcome.

*You can enroll in this course even if it has already started.

This course is for those wanting to reawaken a love of words, and to develop confidence as a writer. Each session includes writing games and exercises to stimulate the imagination, and group discussion and analysis to develop your work. You will have regular tutor input and feedback. Designed to stretch and inspire writers of all levels.

*You can enroll in this course even if it has already started.

Has your poetic practice become too safe and cosy? Do you stick to the same themes / subjects / strategies for writing poems? On this course, you’ll leave your comfort zones, and strike out for the unknown; challenge yourselves to write the sort of poems you’ve never tried before; depending on what the group would like to explore, this could include experimental poetry, prose poems, lesser known poetic forms.

*You can enroll in this course even if it has already started.

In association with the Scottish Poetry Library.

The best advice that Ryan’s own tutor gave him was to ‘read like a writer’. The ideas of the poets and writers featured on this course - some familiar and some not so familiar - will merge with your own, and your imagination will run off in strange new directions. Writing tasks will be suggested each session, but they will be deliberately loose and free, so your own ideas and creativity can come to the fore. Lots of discussion and feedback.

*You can enroll in this course even if it has already started.

In his ‘Detached Sentences on Gardening’ Ian Hamilton Finlay wrote ‘Gardening activity is of five kinds, namely, sowing, planting, fixing, placing, maintaining. In so far as gardening is an Art, all these may be taken under the one head, composing.’ Using this as our guide, we will consider the various ways the practice of poetry mirrors these horticultural processes, from the seed of an idea to feeding and weeding. A course of reading, writing and discussion for beginners and more experienced poets, green-fingered or ink-stained alike.

*You can enroll in this course even if it has already started.

‘A line should read like the clatter and ting of an old fashioned typewriter reaching the margin...or couplets and quatrains should be performed like piano scales, passing slightly at the turn before the descent’ - Sarah Wardle. Rommi offers practical, focused writing advice, exploring the existence of music within everything - the musicality of text, flow, beat, metre, assonance, consonance and repetition - and thinking about music as stimulation for ideas,imagery, rhythm and structure.

*You can enroll in this course even if it has already started.

Bring your poems-in-progress to this stimulating and serious class which aims to provide an opportunity not only to deepen your sense of your own work, but place it within the context of a living tradition. An hour’s close reading will be complimented by an hour’s themed discussion of technical and ideological aspects of the art of poetry, with reference to a multitude of poets who have left their invaluable mark on the field of poetry.

*You can enroll in this course even if it has already started.

In-depth focus on your poems in progress and the overall direction and development of your work. There won’t be writing exercises, but the sessions will be enlivened by reading published poetry as a stimulus for your writing and discussion. To apply, please send four poems to Mimi at 130c Evering Road, London N16 7BD by 16th September 2011.

In-depth focus on your poems in progress and the overall direction and development of your work. There won’t be writing exercises, but the sessions will be enlivened by reading published poetry as a stimulus for your writing and discussion. To apply, please send four poems to Mimi at 130c Evering Road, London N16 7BD by 16th September 2011.

A course for poets - already published in magazines, a pamphlet, or even a first collection - who would like to strike out in a fresh direction. Classes will include close readings to identify habits of form and content, as well as individually tailored writing exercises in which to try something different. Students will need to submit a portfolio of poems in advance of the first session.

Using translations by John Ciardi, Dorothy L Sayers and some starry names from the poetry pantheon alongside the original Italian text, Graham opens up this 100-canto poem of a unique journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise through close reading and discussion, illustrated by the paintings and drawings of Botticelli, Blake, Flaxman, Doré and others. There will be generous handouts, ongoing opportunities for discussion, and plenty of spin-offs for your own writing and further reading.

What do Mervyn Peake, the Mary Celeste and Marilyn Monroe have in common? They’ll all pop up in this workshop designed to refresh and inspire you, both in creating work on the page, and in sharing it with confidence. You’ll read and discuss published poems as a springboard, use exercises to experiment with poetic voice, draft and workshop new poems, and have the chance to receive supportive feedback on improving performance skills. After this day workshop of listening, writing, reading, and exploring identities mistaken, doubled and assumed, you’ll go away with fresh ideas and a greater awareness of your own voice potential.

If you know the basics of your craft and are ready to send your poems out into the world, this course is for you. It will concentrate on the relationship between form and content. Where do we find poetry? Is any topic out of bounds? How do we create the poetic ‘I’ and ‘you’? What can we learn from types of poem, such as the cut-up, ballad or pastoral, where form and content are closely linked?

This is an Advanced course, suitable for those with a keen interest in poetry. Participants should be experienced poets with a track record of magazine / pamphlet publication and be familiar with the ideas and terminology of metrical poetry. This course will help group members write more taut, more impressive poems and will foster experimentation with new forms and fresh ideas. The course looks at how contemporary, particularly UK and US, poets, have moved metre, musicality, rhyme and non-metrical forms into the new century.

The group will see a mix of discussion of published poems and homework exercises. Participants should be willing to write three or four new poems per term and are encouraged to attend all three terms, though the latter is not necessary and some spaces may be available in terms two and three.

This course is by application only. If you are interested in joining for the spring term, please email administration@poetryschool.com by Friday 6th January 2012.

Term One will focus on metrical poetry. We will explore different reasons for using various metres and look at the fine lines which exist between metre being effective and being constrictive. The main concern will be stylistic and technical features of metrical poetry and not simply an introduction to specific poetic forms. In particular we will look at how contemporary poets have adapted metrical forms to new ends. In four of the ten sessions we will look at class members' new work written in response to the published poems discussed the previous week.

Term Two will look at musicality and rhyme, examining how sounds and rhythm come together to help a poem have more impact on the reader or listener. Participants will be encouraged to make their poetry more musical by moving away from modes of story, statement and conversation. As with Term One, there will be a mixture of discussion and homework exercises.

Term Three will focus on variation and experiment, especially on poetic forms and types which are not driven by metre but by shape and structure (eg list poems, question and answer poems), and at recently invented poetic forms. Participants will be expected to write and share new poems influenced by the forms we look at.

A workshop to help you prepare poems which are more likely to find success in competitions or be published in magazines. Roddy, an experienced editor of poetry and competition judge, will take you through the mistakes writers make, and will give you tips on editing and redrafting your poems to make them more effective. You’ll talk about poetry competitions and journals and look at poems which have won competitions in recent years and poems by less established poets which have appeared in leading poetry magazines.

How are poems made? This course looks at how poems are put together using tools that include metre, rhythm, rhyme, imagery, tone of voice, rhetoric and diction. You’ll look at how stanzas, lines, sentences and words work together - taking in traditional forms and styles including sonnets, ballad form and narrative poetry, metaphysical poetry and blank verse; looking at how rhetorical devices work within poems to strengthen them, and how to get the most out of every word. There will be writing exercises but this is not a feedback class.

This course will look at poets whose poetic geographies are not rooted in one place but multiple locations because of travel, migration, having dual heritage and so on. Each week you will study a poet whose poetry is influenced by a hybrid of geographical location, in order to understand how it manifests in their work, to gain a fresh perspective on how to deal with complex identities in your own work and to use as stimulus to create your own poetry. You’ll study poets such as Eavan Boland, Elizabeth Bishop, Christian Campbell, Valzhyna Mort, Kwame Dawes, W N Herbert and John Mateer and use their work as a starting point for creating your own poems.

How do we write about our nearest and dearest (or not so dearest) in our work? What are the ethical considerations around ‘writing the family’? You’ll look at the ways in which some of our best and most daring contemporary poets - including Tim Liardet, Sharon Olds, Pascale Petit, Ros Barber and Neil Rollinson - have represented family members and relationships in their poetry, using a variety of approaches, from the unequivocally direct to the surreal.

Since Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil and T S Eliot’s The Wasteland, poets have written about, recreated, and responded to the endless stimuli and shock of urban living. Now, we live in an increasingly global world, and the 21st century has seen the rise of diverse and multicultural megacities that are co-dependent on each other. Soon there will be more people living in cities than ever before in human history. How can poetry respond to, interact with, and reflect this rapid, and often shocking, urbanisation? Is the contemporary global city an essentially grotesque creation? And how can poetry respond to, and chronicle, the ever-changing 21st century cityscape? Come and read, discuss, and have your own work inspired by the work of poets that struggle with these questions.

New ways to make your poems become energetic so they feel passionate, dramatic and dangerously involved. We will look at the best contemporary examples to understand how poets structure information, how they empower the line and how they present themselves in exciting poems. We will also think about which subject matter works best for dynamic writing. Students will be encouraged to think about how the
energy potential of their work could be maximised and will be given the opportunity to write thrilling new poems on the day.

A monthly meeting for those who have had some experience in writing poetry or serious fiction, involving exercises and in-depth feedback to develop work and critical skills. Myra’s particular interests lie in personal writing, an area in which she’s widely published, also in narrative. To apply, send a short sample of prose or 3 poems with e-mail address or s.a.e. to Myra at 130 Morton Way by 7 September. Submissions can also be sent as a Word attachment to myrarschneider@gmail.com

If you wish to apply for this course for the Spring term, please submit your application using the email address above.

Some poems inaugurate new ways of writing. They create sounds or tones which generate updates, responses and repudiations from their future poet-readers. You’ll explore the reverberations of Keats’ 'To Autumn’, Christopher Marlowe’s ‘The Passionate Shepherd’, Cavafy’s ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’, Louis Mac Neice’s ‘Snow’, John Clare’s ‘Mouse’s Nest’ and others, asking how and why they have inspired or acted as a central reference point for poems by other writers. Track the ways poems influence and react to one another and ask what we can learn from them as we make our own new poems.

A fortnightly course – exploring rhythm and rhyme in contemporary poetry. The sessions will include close readings of poems, writing exercises and discussion.

This course is appropriate for beginners and those who have written some poetry but who would like take a more structured approach to their writing. You will examine the basics of rhyme, metre, verse forms, lineation and stanza structure. Through exercises, reading, writing and feedback, you will also begin to construct a voice, to create shapes on the page and develop your first drafts with confidence.

Your poems are at the heart of this session: in-depth feedback from George and students on your poetry in progress. Bring 16 copies of one of your draft poems. George will also provide some writing exercises and ideas to send your writing in new directions.

UPDATE: The replacement session for the postponed Autumn term date will be on 17th March 2012. Please contact the office for more information.

Your poems are at the heart of these sessions: in-depth feedback from tutor and students on your poetry-in-progress. Bring 16 copies of one of your draft poems to the first session. Suitable for everybody looking to grow and develop as writers.

Your poems are at the heart of these sessions: in-depth feedback from tutor and students on your poetry-in-progress. Bring 16 copies of one of your draft poems to the first session. Suitable for everybody looking to grow and develop as writers.

A short but intensive course in writing poems. In each session you will start new work, based on classic and contemporary poems, followed by a supportive critical workshop. Small e-mail groups between the sessions will give further feedback and will share (enjoyable!) tasks that explore the way poems work. Suitable for all levels of committed writer.

How might a poem give us a highvoltage jolt to the heart, allow us to see the world in different ways? What makes some poems fly, and others not achieve lift-off? Through close reading, discussion, writing and feedback we’ll explore these questions. Weeks will alternate between investigating a poem in some depth and then using it as a springboard into writing, and feedback on our own work. These two terms will be stimulating for both novices and experienced poets. The Bloodaxe anthology Staying Alive will be our inspiration; so you’ll need to bring it to each session.

One way to shape a line of poetry is by counting syllables, those tiny units of sound that flavour a poem. This method, known as syllabics, is less often practised then metre or free verse but, linked to stanza and line length patterns, syllabics gives a muscular structure to a poem. You will explore the effects of using syllabic patterns, read contemporary and canonical examples (including those by Marianne Moore and Dylan Thomas) and create a new syllabic poem.

The T S Eliot Prize is awarded annually by the Poetry Book Society for the best new collection of poetry. Each year, the Poetry School organises an event where an Eliot Prize judge or distinguished poet provides an overview of the year’s ten shortlisted books, paying close attention to individual poems and inviting comment and debate from the audience. It’s the perfect warm up to the Shortlist readings at the Royal Festival Hall in the evening. This year's host is Jane Draycott. Eliot-shortlisted in 2009 for her collection, Over, Jane's latest book is a new translation of the 14th century dream-vision Pearl (Carcanet, 2011), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation. Jane's regular Saturday classes at the Poetry School always sell out - we know she'll host a lively and detailed discussion of this year's Shortlisted collections.

Bookings will be handled through the South Bank's website at http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/ - as soon tickets are available, we will let you know.

A group for advanced poets which focuses on key topics. This year these will include consideration of syntax, different origins for poems and key American poets. Detailed discussion of your poems is included in each session. To apply, send six poems with e-mail address or s.a.e to Myra at 130 Morton Way above by 12 Sept. Submissions can also be sent as a Word attachment to myrarschneider@gmail.com

Please note: due to a technical issue, if anyone has applied for this course via email since mid-August, please re-submit your application using the email address above.