Information on workshops

Poetry workshops can be a great introduction to the craft of poetry and an opportunity for experienced writers to sharpen their technique for those more experienced writers.

I have many years’ worth of workshop facilitation experience working with audiences of different levels of familiarity with poetry. I have also worked with a wide range of age ranges from primary school level to adults. In the past I have run workshops for organisations like Bridlington Poetry Festival, The Writing Squad and The Brain Charity.

Below is a list of workshops already on offer though all are adaptable and I am always open to hearing your ideas.

Failing with style/frankensteining a poetic form/Metrophobia

All poets fear the blank page. Together we’ll explore how “arbitrary” rules connect us to our unconscious and fortify us in the face of the prewritten poem.

In the workshop we will explore a fear of our own to make up the subject of the poem. We will discover what poetic techniques the subject of our poem suggests to us, and we will learn to shamelessly steal techniques from other poems.

This workshop can be run as a short session (two hour) or a longer session (four hours). Currently structured as a one-off session but open to developing it into a series of workshops.

Writing poems for office survival

Many organisations are looking for new and innovative ways to improve their employee’s mental health. Poetry provides the perfect vehicle for us to express ourselves and to explore our creativity. Many people are put off poetry when taught it for exams in school – it ingrains in us the belief that there is a right way to understand poetry.

This workshop is an exciting and easy-going look at how we can use verse to connect to each other, using a mixture of group and individual writing exercises.

The workshop lengths are flexible - currently designed as a one-off one hour session but can be adapted for whatever your needs are.

This is what these poetry writing sessions can do for you and your office:

A poetry workshop can help refresh your perspective on how to write
It can bring out the flare in your team's writing
It can be an amazing team building exercise
It can be an immense amount of fun

Intrigued but still don’t know if this workshop would be right for you? Please don’t hesitate to contact me and we can discuss any questions you might have.

Getting well-versed

This workshop is conceived as a series of twelve one–two-hour sessions. Each session and the whole series overall is flexible and can be changed to fit your needs. My recommendation would be the two-hour long sessions as it gives participants time to dig down into each exercise.

We will mine everyday subjects to develop and challenge our idea of what poems are and can be. These sessions will include a mixture of individual and group writing exercises There will also be the chance to look at already published poems, talk about what we like and don’t like about the poems with a view to incorporating those lessons into our own writing.

Photo credit Steve Dearden

Interested?

Contact me about these workshops or any other ideas for workshops you might have.

Fill out the contact form and speak to you soon.