The Verandah is looking forward to welcoming poets from both hemispheres for new exciting programme.
We are taking a break over July & August, mostly because it’s summertime in the UK with loads of post-Covid travel. Though, of course, the ongoing small group poetry feedback workshops continue year-round.
Here’s the programme for the second half of 2023. Masterclass bookings will be released over July, August, September – sign up to the newsletter to hear about them first.
The Climate of Change: UK Morning OR UK Evening timezones
Be at the forefront of poetic thinking, exploring positive change. Find fresh and inspiring perspectives on the change we need in this ongoing environmental emergency. There are three sessions and each session delves into a theme in depth, starting with sustainable sustenance. Food has a huge role to play in sustainability. About a third of food is wasted, one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. How can we better value food and its means of production?
Join the UK morning workshop (evening time for Aussies) or the UK evening workshop (suitable for US timezones).
Dive into Poetry: Thematic reading and writing poetry sessions
Away with the Birds, 22nd October
Explore birds and flight. Birds are a vital connection with nature no matter where you live, even in city centres. Their flight and song has accompanied our lives and they’ve fascinated imaginations since the beginning of time. Flight is the ultimate imaginative power. Superheroes can often fly and humans have invented an array of contraptions in order to fly.
To make sure you have a smooth landing toward the end of the year, Poetry & Mindfulness returns over November! You an book now and I’m offering all newsletter subscribers a FREE session or 50% off for all four sessions. Limited places: first come first served.
Mindfulness has been shown to reduce stress and improve well-being, clarity, focus and creativity. Good for your wellbeing as well as sharpening your writing!
Small Group Feedback
There is one spot left on a new small group poetry feedback: 3 sessions in August, September and October. It’s an enjoyable and effective way to hone your work. To apply get in touch.
Poetry Masterclasses
1. Environmental perspectives in Hughes, Heaney & Beyond,
Yvonne Reddick 18/9/23
How do poets use environmental language and approach environmental perspectives in their work? This is a critical question as we
consider how to write in a time of climate and environmental emergency.
Yvonne will lead you through close readings of how the poetry of Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney, poetry giants of their time, developed
environmental sensibilities. She’ll also give contemporary poetic examples and lead a short writing session.
2. The Art of Play, Judith Beveridge 4/9/23
Over the centuries the magic of poetry has been explained in various ways, either as a gift from the Muses, as a result of ‘inspiration’, or via the
idea of ‘genius’. Part of the mystery and magic that language can deliver is connected deeply to the sense of play. The play of language exposes all sorts of things from the irrational and absurd, to comparison, openness, and movement, rather than closure, stasis and the predictable.
3. Don Paterson Masterclass: The Telling Detail – Metonymy and the Half-said Thing 4/10/23 (details to come)
4. The Dramatic Monologue, Judith Beveridge 18/10/23
The Dramatic Monologue has been around for centuries; it is the second oldest form of poetry after the epic. The dramatic monologue challenges the poet to be imaginative, empathetic, and inventive because it requires adopting a persona or mask to explore and expose feelings which the poet may feel uncomfortable exploring when using their own voice.
5. Precise Poetry Editing, Pascale Petit 13/11/23
We will discuss how to edit our poems, focusing on free verse and that all important line-break. We look at how to edit a poem so it’s precise
and each line has integral power. We’ll do this by comparing earlier drafts of published poets’ poems as they appeared in magazines, with the final versions collected in their books.
Pascale will also share some of her own early drafts and talk about her editing techniques.
6. Writing the Self, Pascale Petit 5/12/23
What are the ways into writing the personal in poetry? How can you make it intimate, playful and inventive for the writer and reader? Pascale will guide you to explore how to estrange the personal to make it new, while drawing closer to your truth. You will learn strategies for expanding your sense of self-in-writing by inspiring example poems, and you will use images to help write imaginary and real selves
