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A workshop based on two tales by the Brothers Grimm. Both Hansel & Gretel and the lesser- known wonder tale The Juniper Tree deal with memory, nurture, abandonment and homecoming. Explore the historical, anthropological and social context of these tales to discover the themes, motifs and structures that will trigger your own new fairy tale poems.

We live in a built environment; from the familiar comforts of your own front room to the monumental scale of Buckingham Palace. Buildings can be holy sanctuaries or wholly confining - they frame our lives. Likewise a 'stanza' is a room, within the larger building of a poem. Join us for a literal and lateral exploration of built spaces - finding doors into new poetry, imagined institutions, and the real buildings that you inhabit or walk past every day. You’ll use plans and pictures of real and imagined buildings, and draw on your own favourite or best remembered buildings to create new work.

How are doctors and hospitals represented? What about health, hygiene, sanitation and contamination? How best to work through contemporary issues, ethics and questions? You won’t be writing about your own personal medical experiences per se, but you will be writing about bodies and using your own as springboards for imaginative work. You’ll also read and discuss a range of poems by modern and contemporary poets who engage with the topic.

In Robert Hass' poem 'The Problem of Describing Colour', almost every stanza begins with 'If I said …', invoking speech to find a way to say something fresh about the colour 'red'. How do speech acts help us to define and refine perception? How can they be used as markers of the speaker and as a tool for self-reflexivity? How do experimental poets explode speech conventions to create new structures for poetry? Look for answers to these questions, and push your poems in some new directions.

In this seminar-style workshop Don will take the back off six poems by six different poets, in an attempt to figure out how they work - and how they have withstood the test of time. He’ll look at each poem from the perspective of its meaning and metre, its music, metaphors and metonymies, looking at how each of them - in their very different ways - have been built with the integrity of ‘single-celled organisms’. (Numbers for this session will be capped at 25)

Joelle Taylor, poet, playwright and Artistic Director
of SLAMbassadors UK, the national youth slam championships, leads a master class in spoken word. In the space of a few hours you will learn how to write for performance, find stimulus in the most unlikely places, create a new piece based on the theme of ‘identity’, explore performance techniques, discover how to work polyvocally and add rhythm and beatbox to a collaborative piece, and finally perform the finished poem.

Andre Breton said, ‘a man who cannot visualise a horse galloping on a tomato is an idiot’ and random ephemera, juxtaposition and imagery form the beating heart of this 1-day workshop. We will use a series of short, focused writing prompts to encourage spontaneous poetic responses to a variety of stimuli. These responses will form the bases for writing and discussion during the session itself, and will also mean participants have a collection of raw material to take away with them. Bring a dedicated notebook and be ready to tackle group and individual exercises inspired by Surrealism, Dada and Oulipo. Visual and audio materials will sit next to excerpts and fragments, found texts, lists and random marginalia. There will be time to write privately, as well as a group-sharing session when participants will get the chance to read their own work and witness how fellow writers responded to the stimuli of the workshop.

‘You just go on your nerve’ (Frank O’Hara). A workshop can surprise us into going on our nerve, into writing about things we might not have thought of, or in ways that we haven’t written before. It can also surprise us into writing those poems that seem to have been waiting to be written. This workshop will include stimulating exercises in response to a variety of contemporary poems. Every level of writer welcome.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth (Oscar Wilde). Poems should surprise us as we write them. In this session on the dramatic monologue, you will enjoy the surprise and freedom that comes with wearing a mask. Through discussion and writing exercises, we will explore voice and character to uncover dark narratives: what is the postman really thinking? Why does Cathy spend so long in the shed?

Using classic and contemporary poems which describe or are written from a particular place, we will travel in exciting writing exercises around the world. Please if you can bring a poem of your own about a place to share on the day. Also a postcard (or two) which means something to you, a holiday picture postcard - Skegness or Malibu Beach perhaps - or from your home town. At the heart of the Poetry Place day is enjoyable writing exercises which will move your writing on in more ways than one.

Using classic and contemporary poems which describe or are written from a particular place, we will travel in exciting writing exercises around the world. Please if you can bring a poem of your own about a place to share on the day. Also a postcard (or two) which means something to you, a holiday picture postcard -- Skegness or Malibu Beach perhaps -- or from your home town. At the heart of the Poetry Place day is enjoyable writing exercises which will move your writing on in more ways than one.

This fascinating, hands-on trawl of all the major pathways into new poems is as comprehensive as it is unique. Includes observation, the senses, personal memory, reflection, imagination, other people’s work – indeed, everything from the 'found poem' to Larkin's pickles. Mario’s immense experience in the field fuels a groundbreaking masterclass on compositional process, generating a workshop experience of immense variety and enduring value.

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

This workshop addresses a writer’s need for adventure. Poets will be encouraged to consider their writing ‘beyond the poem’ in order to identify habits and possible new approaches. Through writing exercises and looking at the work of a range of contemporary poems we will explore sequence poems, life-drawing through language and challenging self-censorship. Part of the workshop will focus on clarifying your expectations/aspirations (ie publication/collections/residencies). Workshop content is flexible and can respond to the group’s interests and questions.

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

This workshop will explore a range of start-up activities from which you will generate a number of drafts to take away for later development. Looking at a selection of published poems we will consider persona, pace and structure and finding ‘ways in’. Part of the workshop will focus on identifying what it is you need to progress – and how to make that happen. Hand-outs are provided on creating an editing check-list, and submitting work for competitions and publication. Workshop content is flexible and can respond the group’s interests and questions.

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

How can ordinary experience be made extraordinary? In those gaps and cracks of the everyday, countless opportunities arise for creativity.   Mario concentrates on process, offering a unique workshop approach that leads to new work and fresh ways of thinking your way into a poem. "Inspiring... Feedback was the most positive we've ever had for an outside tutor" (A.C. Clarke). "Constant surprise... expanding sensory input - brilliant facilitator" (Making Poetry Workshops).

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

Faking it up with the Truth - what the confessional poets can teach us about writing from life. (Clare can also run the following beginners' session - Sound Effects: fun with sound from nonsense poetry to Dada, onomatopeia to alliteration.)

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

The line is the basic unit of poetic measure, and the way the poet crafts a line can be crucial to the reading of a particular poem. Through discussion and practical exercises, participants will explore strategies for creating pace, movement, shape and visual impact in their poems. Poems and texts by Denise Levertov, Sharon Olds and John Burnside will be examined.

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

In this workshop on the contemporary in poetry, you'll look at developments in UK and US poetry in the last decade or so, focusing on the writers who have brought new vigour and intriguing ideas and styles to the world of poetry. By leading a discussion of the work of UK poets such as Jen Hadfield and Nick Laird and US poets including D A Powell and Chelsey Minnis, editor and anthologist Roddy Lumsden will open up new possibilities in your own writing, and expand your poetic horizons.

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

This one-day course will help you to prepare poems which are more likely to find success in competitions or be published in magazines. Roddy Lumsden, 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. We will 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.

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

Through guided writing activities you will learn tried and trusted ways to generate new ideas, and, from these ideas, compose a first draft. This workshop aims to demystify poetry – but will also celebrate the mysteries of this powerful and egalitarian art form. The workshop will include: model poems (classic and contemporary poets); form examples; ways to keep your writing vivid; how to workshop poems, plus information on redrafting and publishing. Workshop content is flexible and can respond the group’s interests and questions.

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

This workshop utilises visual art as a stimulus for writing new poems. Based on her own practice of collaborating with various visual artists, Tamar examines the issues and techniques involved in writing on art (or ekrphasis). Poems by Gillian Clarke, Mark Doty, Frank O’Hara, John Burnside and ‘visual texts’ by Ian Hamilton Finlay and John Furnival will be discussed as examples.

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

Traversing the centuries and the world, Graham presents untitled poems by up to ten very different poets. The group reads each one closely and then guesses who wrote it when and where. You will feel encouraged to say anything which may strike you about each poem. It is not a poetry knowledge test. Especially enjoyable is the range of ‘possible’ names, dates, countries and languages suggested, proving that even answers that aren’t ‘right’ aren’t wrong either!

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

This workshop looks at narrative in contemporary poetry. Many poems are dismissed as 'mere anecdote' and story poems have somewhat fallen out of fashion. Yet some poets manage to make the genre work and others have reinvented it, with 'elliptical', 'associative', condensed or non-linear narrative. We will look at a range of contemporary UK and US poems which tell stories using a variety of techniques. The last section of the workshop will involve me making comments on poems (to be submitted in advance) by the workshop participants, with advice on how to improve them editorially and in terms of their narrative strengths.

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

“No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader” (Robert Frost).   Our notion of 'surprise' as that sudden event outside our control isn’t entirely accurate. Indeed, we writers often yearn for our creations to leap beyond our diligently constructed fences, to bound off into terrain we could never imagine ours. Mario accesses those deeper strata of writing process that launch the imagination into fresh realms on the back of an invigorating, incisive language.

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

Graham Fawcett chooses poems by American poet Elizabeth Bishop, Japanese haiku master Matsuo Basho and late 20 century Serbian lyric poet Ivan Lalic to illustrate how absence from home and the encounter with another place influence a poet's journey through the inner and outer world and how readers experience these journeys as if they themselves were making them. A reading day designed designed to provide stimulus for those who read and write poetry.

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

We’ll experience the creative stimulus of making decisions on key translation issues: e.g. balancing literal and idiomatic English, or whether to save or ditch the original’s rhyme or metaphor. No preparation required. You’ll come fresh to each poem and have time to work in class on your translations from French, Italian and Norwegian. No previous language knowledge needed - vocabulary support will be provided. Published translations will also be compared.

Write what you don't know - looking at poetry and surprise, with techniques to keep your poetry fresh from surrealist games to fake travelogues and literary transvestism.(Clare can also offer the following intermediate session - Acting up: Creating dramatic voices in monologues and dialogues)

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

Your poetry and its audience - exploring arguments about entertainment and intelligibility, whilst also thinking about practical ways to engage your reader: titles, first lines, direct address, setting up questions, narrative etc
(Clare could also offer advanced sessions on Assembling a Manuscript, or Translations and Versions)

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

This workshop investigates how poets respond to landscape, and can be tailored to focus on either rural or urban settings, or the conflicts between them. We will examine the work of poets such as Wordsworth, Roy Fisher, John Clare, Frank O’Hara, Alice Oswald; and texts by Richard Mabey, Rebecca Solnit and Robert MacFarlane, who write on a variety of topics including psychogeography and ecopoetry. Poets will be encouraged to produce a draft of a poem during the session.

Travelling Workshops are package deals for your pre-existing groups of writers and readers. The Poetry School charges a set fee, how much you charge individual participants is up to you. Download our factsheet for more details.

The Villanelle is a wonderfully pliable form, revealing its musical origins in a dance-like double refrain, and core of repeated rhymes. In this class, you will close-read some villanelle classics, discuss the arts of rule-stretching, and write – or collaborate on writing – your own villanelle. Individual copies of poems will be provided, but a useful preparatory text is Villanelles, Eds. Annie Finch and Marie-Elizabeth Mali, Everyman’s Library, 2012, £9.99.