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Booking information

Duration: six weeks
Type: Interactive Online Course
Level: Open to all
Location: Poetry School Online

Details

Start date: Tuesday 18th Sep 2012
Session times: Tuesdays, fortnightly, 7-9pm (UK time)
Cost:
Full cost:£46.00
60+:£38.00
Concs:£34.00

 

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Face to face

Witnessing War

What dilemmas and challenges does a poet face when entering the diffi cult terrain of war and confl ict? Is it possible to find the lyric voice in the face of the trauma of war? How can we avoid polemic and cliché? How can we write poems with integrity and emotion which also avoid sentimentality? What moral implications come about when we write about war from the comfort of our armchairs? This course will look at a range of responses to war and consider what part poets play in bearing witness to their own and others suffering, with shared examples from the world of historical and contemporary poetry, along with a fortnightly task to help you write poems of witness to war.

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Seni Seneviratne
Seni Seneviratne is a writer, poet, performer, singer and creative artist born and raised in Leeds, Yorkshire and of English and Sri Lankan heritage. Her work as a poet and live artist has been praised particularly for the unique talent of engaging an audience through poetry and song. Her poetry is published in the UK, Denmark, Canada and South Africa.
Seni published her first collection, Wild Cinnamon Winter Skin (Peepal Tree Press) which offered a poetic landscape echoing themes of migration, family, love and loss and reflecting her personal journey as a woman of mixed heritage. One of the poems from this collection was highly commended by the judges in the Forward Poetry Prize 2007. The collection was praised by Professor Ramey (California State University, Los Angeles) as “a virtual master class between covers which represents two decades of commitment to poetic craft…..The poet’s vision is given over with consistent generosity and empathy towards the human spirit, to a glorious populace of individuals… whose lives will be permanently commemorated with respect, dignity and affection through the poems in this collection.”