Spring term is now upon us and last minute places are still available to book. Our programme is online and available for download and you can either book online or the phone the office on 0207 582 1679 for booking and enquiries. If you would like a brochure mailed out to you, or if you have any problems booking, give us a ring on and we'll help. Happy new year!

We offer a programme of classes both online and face to face, to teach adults to write poetry. From the ongoing commitment of a year-long course to a burst of inspiration from a one-day workshop, we offer poets of all levels the opportunity to improve their skills. We are open to everyone, regardless of qualifications or experience.

The Poetry School started life in 1997 in London and continues to flourish there. In 2007 we moved into new offices with adjoining teaching premises in Lambeth. We have also established teaching centres in Birmingham, Brighton, Bridport, Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, Exeter, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Oxford, Plymouth and Portsmouth as well as a growing range of online and download activities.

There’s been lots of best of 2011 poetry books doing the rounds at the moment, so we thought we’d do ours! In no particular order, here are our top ten and why we love them. We've got loads more we loved! But there's only so many hours in the day. What's your opinion? Best poetry book of 2011? Tweet us @poetryschool or Facebook us! Who have we missed?

We like to test our newest additions to the Poetry School. In keeping with his experimental course, we dared Chris McCabe to answer some questions from us in us in less than 140 characters. He passed our experimental test, and he also gave us a poem! Read on for his snappy interview, and to book on to his course, which focuses on the tradition of experimentation, Fluxus, Concrete poetry and a bunch click here.

'Poetry is, among other things, an exercise in accessing what we don’t know we know; in training the mind to think clearly; in cleansing perception': Rachael Boast's Sidereal is one of the stand out debut collections of 2011, having been shortlisted for the Aldeburgh First Collection prize, longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and winning the Forward Prize for best first collection. We talked to her about the book of Job, the attention on her first collection, and the hugeness of the universe.