Learning & outreach
Alumni
Since 2007, 40 poets have ‘graduated’ from the Advanced Poetry Seminar, many of whom have gone on to secure recognition, first collection publication, prize nominations and awards.
2011
Liz Berry, Jamie Coward, Ramona Herdman, Hannah Lowe, Alex McCrae, Fiona Moore, Jocelyn Page, Luke Yates
2010
Peter Daniels, Rebecca Farmer, Holly Hopkins, Nicholas MacKinnon, Sophie Nichols, Rebecca Perry, Angela Smith, Tom Warner
2009
Cathy Benson, Jonathan Davidson, David Gilbert, Daniel Hardisty, Helen Mort, Catherine Ormell, Meryl Pugh, River Wolton
2008
Gill Andrews, Cathy Bolton, Graham Clifford, Katrina Naomi, Diana Pooley, Ed Reiss, Philip Rush, Mary Woodward
2007
Sally Baker, Judy Brown, Susan Burns, Philip Hancock, Allison McVety, Philip Polecoff, Kathryn Simmonds, Saradha Soobrayen
An alumni programme is being developed to support, promote and connect Seminar participants. It is anticipated that this will create an influential group in which the more established poets will be able to provide guidance to emerging writers.
The course was undoubtedly one of the best weeks of my life. The detailed feedback and inspiring advice from Michael and Peter made me see my work afresh and I left with an entirely new approach to my writing.
Helen Mort.
Helen has published two collections including Pint for the Ghost, which was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice. Her work has appeared in The Spectator, Poetry Review and The Manhattan Review.
The Advanced Seminar had a really very significant impact on me and my writing. It re-acquainted me with the pleasures of sharing poetry, of hearing it read and reading it aloud.
Jonathan Davidson.
Jonathan is the joint-founder and Associate Director of the Birmingham book Festival and CEO of Writing West Midlands. His radio plays are regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
The Seminar gave me the confidence to find and take up opportunities. It was a remarkably good course with a careful selection process.
Peter Daniels.
Peter won first prize in the 2010 TLS Poetry Competition. Peter is currently engaged on a project to translate poems by Vladislav Khodasevich (1886-1939) from Russian.
Learning & outreach
How To Apply in 2011
To apply in person or to nominate a poet
The following needs to be supplied:
- Full contact details (including email)
- A selection of poems (no more than six, published or unpublished) to be supplied as a single Word document with each poem plus author’s name on a separate page
Publication history - A brief biography
- A short statement of suitability for the course, likely contribution to the group and anticipated benefits (no more than 150 words)
Please send this information, preferably by email, to:
info@thepoetrytrust.org
or by post to:
Advanced Seminar, The Poetry Trust
The Cut, 9 New Cut, Halesworth, Suffolk IP19 8BY
All applications must be received by Monday 17 January 2011.
Successful applicants will be notified no later than
Friday 4 February 2011.
All tuition, accomodation (single occupancy) and meals (catered) are included. This is a highly subsidised course, costing £295 per participant. In exceptional cases further bursaries, including travel grants, may be made available. If you are selected to participant on the course you will be contacted for payment.
Learning & outreach
2011 Information
The Poetry Trust has run an Advanced Seminar since 2007, initially with funding from the Jerwood Charitable Trust. The model has proved enormously successful with overwhelmingly positive feedback from the participants and strong industry support.
MORE ABOUT THE SEMINAR ‘EIGHT’ IN 2011
Liz Berry is 30 and lives in London
Liz works as an infant school teacher. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway and received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 2009. Her first pamphlet The Patron Saint of Schoolgirls was published by tall lighthouse in 2010. She recently joined Kingston University as Emerging Poet in Residence. She has had poems published in a number of major poetry magazines and on Radio 3’s Words and Music.
Liz is beginning to develop the poems for a first collection and is looking forward to the opportunity of concentrated time away with other writers and with the guidance of experienced tutors.
Jamie Coward is 38 and lives in Sheffield
Jamie completed a degree in English at Bretton Hall College in 1997. For four years he wrote and self published comic books with Arts Council grant support and has worked as a copywriter since 1999. He is currently in the University of Sheffield’s marketing department. He has had poems published in a number of major poetry magazines.
Jamie is studying part-time for a Writing MA at Sheffield Hallam, the outcome of which is a first collection of publishable quality. He is looking forward to the opportunity to workshop with peers and gain the impetus that it is hard to achieve as a part-time student.
Ramona Herdman is 32 and lives in Norwich
Ramona completed her BA English degree at UEA and then went straight to the MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) taught by Denise Riley and Andrew Motion. She now works as a civil servant in the Cabinet Office, dividing her time between Norwich and London. She tries to do as much writing as possible in her day job, but the creative element is necessarily limited. Her first collection Come what you wished for was published by Egg Box Publishing in 2003. A number of her poems have appeared in major poetry magazines.
Ramona is really looking forward to the opportunity to discuss what is great about a poem, what needs changing and what can be done about it.
Hannah Lowe is 34 and lives in London
Hannah works as a literature teacher in a sixth form college and has been writing for about four years. She has attended a number of classes and workshops at The Poetry School and elsewhere and has participated in two Arvon courses. In 2010 she was commended in the Arvon International Poetry Competition and has won or been placed in several competitions for single poems. She has had poems published in major poetry magazines. Her first pamphlet The Hitcher is to be published by The Rialto early in 2011.
Hannah is looking forward to a week to focus on writing with the benefit of wisdom from both the tutors and other participants. She would like to work on finishing then sequencing her manuscript, which is biographical in nature.
Alex McCrae is 31 and lives in Washington DC
Alex works as a broadcast journalist for Associated Press in Washington and divides her time between London and the USA. Her poems have been published in a number of poetry magazines, both here and in the States. She was a prize-winner in the Plough Prize in 2007 and won an Eric Gregory Award in 2009.
Alex is at first collection stage and feels that she would benefit from spending time with others at a similar point and is looking forward to being in a creative and supportive environment where she can connect to other poets.
Fiona Moore is 51 and lives in London
Fiona left a job in the Foreign Office 7 years ago, to write poetry. Since then she has read widely, and written to make up for lost time. She has had 16 poems published in well-known magazines, and has just started a poetry blog. She has worked part-time for a sustainable development charity. She has an MBA specialising in organisational culture and a degree in Classics, and has lived in Poland and Greece.
Fiona expects to learn from the other participants and gain a major stimulus for her own writing. Practical advice on preparing a collection would be extremely helpful.
Jocelyn Page is 44 and lives in London
American by birth, Jocelyn began writing poetry in 2007 after a career in international education. She completed her MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmith’s College in 2009 and is now pursuing an MPhil/PhD focusing on poetry. She has attended advanced courses at both Arvon and The Poetry School. Her debut pamphlet Smithereens was published by tall lighthouse in 2010 and her poetry has appeared in a number of print and on-line poetry journals. She was highly commended by the New Writer Prose and Poetry contest in 2008.
Jocelyn is currently writing towards a first full collection. She is looking forward to bonding with a group of poets with the aim of working towards growth and learning.
Luke Yates is 27 and lives in Manchester
Luke is a former Foyle Young Poet and enjoyed much success as a teenager, with poems published in several anthologies and literary journals as well as on the London Underground. He is now writing a PhD on Catalan squatters. Luke put out a pamphlet Thinking inside the Box with the Philadelphia Institute for Advanced Study in 2009, “launched from a 3’ by 3’ wooden box suspended twenty feet over a microphone and a glass of water”.
Luke is looking forward to producing new raw material and polishing up pieces he hasn’t been able to develop on his own, and to making some helpful friends among participants who are at a similar stage.
THE TUTORS
Michael Laskey has published four collections, most recently The Man Alone: New & Selected Poems (Smith/Doorstop 2008). He founded and co-edits Smiths Knoll magazine and he co-founded the international Aldeburgh Poetry Festival and directed it for its first 10 years. A highly experienced workshop leader and writing tutor, he is Chair of the judges for the £3,000 Aldeburgh First Collection Prize.
Peter Sansom has published four collections, most recently The Last Place on Earth (Carcanet 2006), and the classic and recently reprinted handbook, Writing Poems (Bloodaxe). He is a director of The Poetry Business and editor of The North magazine and Smith/Doorstop Books. He has taught at Huddersfield and Leeds universities and has held several high profile residencies including Marks & Spencer and the Prudential.
THE VENUE
Bruisyard Hall dates from the 14th century and provides an atmospheric and spacious retreat in rural Suffolk, wonderfully well-suited to creative endeavour. The house has recently been totally refurbished with oil fired central heating, re-plumbing and re-wiring. With 10 bedrooms and five bathrooms, it combines grandeur and style with comfort and homeliness. For more information, visit www.bruisyardhall.co.uk
Learning & outreach
Toolkit Order Form
For your printed copy of the Poetry Toolkit, please fill in the form below.
The Poetry Toolkit distribution is limited to one copy per person and for delivery to the UK only
Learning & outreach
Introduction
The Poetry Trust’s fifth Advanced Seminar took place in March 2011 and since 2007 it has provided a unique opportunity for a small group of talented UK poets of any age - either at first collection or between first and second collection stage - to take part in an intensive five-day course, led by two outstanding poet-tutors with strong editorial experience.
There will not be an Advanced Seminar in March 2012. We hope to offer the next Advanced Seminar in 2013, but this will depend on successful fundraising in 2012. For enquiries, please email us.
The seminar gave us all a great opportunity to articulate stored anxieties, concern, relections and wisdom and to think productively about the ways forward. It was fantastic to spend time with people who care as much about poetry as I do.
Hannah Lowe, course participant 2011
Learning & outreach
Interest Form
To receive details of Reading Groups, please complete and submit the form below
Learning & outreach
Interest Form
To receive details of Teachers Workshops, please complete and submit the form below
Learning & outreach
Teachers Toolkit Request
Order your free Toolkit
Learning & outreach
Poem Poster Thanks
Grateful thanks to all the poets - firstly for their wonderful poems and secondly for so generously granting us permission to reproduce their work on posters as part of The Poetry Treatment.
FIRST BATCH OF POSTERS
1. Jane Anderson, Tiddly Om Pom Pom (published in Smiths Knoll, 2004)
2. Mourid Barghouti, Interpretations, from A Small Sun, (published by The Poetry Trust, 2003)
3. Connie Bensley, Cardiac Department, from Central Reservations: New & Selected Poems (published by Bloodaxe in 1990)
4. Billy Collins, No Time, from Nine Horses, (published by Picador in 2003)
5. Roy Fisher, Epic, from The Dow Low Drop (published by Bloodaxe in 1996)
6. Vona Groarke, Bournemouth, from Jupiter Street (published by Gallery Books in 2006)
7. Choman Hardi, My Children, from Life for Us (published by Bloodaxe in 2004)
8. David Hart, There Are No Chairs from Running Out (published by Five Seasons Press in 2006)
9. Matt Harvey, Tense Times Table, from The Hole in the Sum of My Parts (published by The Poetry Trust in 2005)
10. Geoff Hattersley, All Weekend, from Back of Beyond (published by Smith/Doorstop in 2006)
11. Jane Hirshfield, Tree, from Each Happiness Ringed by Lions (published by Bloodaxe in 2005)
12. Naomi Jaffa, Twins, from The Last Hour of Sleep (published by Five Leaves in 2003)
13. Louis Jenkins, Marriage, from North Of The Cities (published by Will o’ the Wisp Books in 2007)
14. Michael Laskey, Concert, from The Man Alone: New & Selected Poems (published by Smith Doorstop in 2008)
15. Lorraine Mariner, Stanley, from Bye for Now, (published by The Rialto in 2005)
16. Roger McGough, 40 - Love, from Collected Poems (published by Penguin Books in 2003)
17. Adrian Mitchell, Put your Brain to Bed, from Blue Coffee: Poems 1985-1996, (published by Bloodaxe in 1996)
18. Helena Nelson, Bike with No Hands, from Starlight on Water, (published by The Rialto in 2003)
19. Dean Parkin, Sweet Offer, from Just Our Luck, (published by The Garlic Press in 2008)
20. Christopher Reid, Rabbits and Concrete (2004)
21. Michael Rosen, (Untitled), Selected Poems (published by Penguin in 2007)
22. Naomi Shihab Nye, Please Describe How You Became A Writer, from You and Yours (published by Boa Editions)
23. Aharon Shabtai, The Door, from Love and Selected Poems (published by The Sheep Meadow Press in 1997)
24. Jackie Wills, Appeal, from Fever Tree (published by Arc Publications in 2003)
SECOND BATCH OF POSTERS
1. Moniza Alvi, Indian Cooking, from A Country at my Shoulder (published by Oxford Poets in 1993)
2. Gerard Benson, Not That I’m Superstitious from Omba Bolomba (published by Smith/Doorstop in 2005)
3. Sujata Bhatt, Love In A Bathtub from Point no Point (published by Carcanet in 1997)
4. Mandy Coe, The Blue Row Boat from The Weight of Cows (published by Shoestring Press in 2004)
5. Finuala Dowling, Butter from Notes from The Dementia Ward (published by Kwela Books in 2008)
6. Lorna Goodison, I Am Becoming My Mother from Guinea Woman (published by Carcanet in 2000)
7. David Healey, Late Dragonflies
8. Mimi Khalvati, The Robin And The Eggcup from The Meanest Flower (published by Carcanet in 2007)
9. Liz Lochhead, Phoenix from Dreaming Frankenstein (published by Polygon in 1984)
10. Herbert Lomas, Hard from Trouble (published by Sinclair-Stevenson in 1992)
11. Thomas Lux, And The Mice Made Marriage All Night from God Particles (published by Houghton Mifflin in 2008)
12. Ian McMillan, Life on Earth from Selected Poems published by Carcanet in 1987)
13. Angela McSeveney, Fleas from Coming out with it (published by Polygon in 1992)
14. Esther Morgan, Avocados from Beyond Calling Distance (published by Bloodaxe Books in 2001)
15. Julie O’Callaghan, My Life from Two Barks (published by Bloodaxe in 1998)
16. Alastair Reid, Scotland from When Now is not Now (published by The Poetry Trust in 2006)
17. Peter Sansom, A Dream Mistaking A Person For What He Has Come To Represent from January (published by Carcanet in 1994)
18. Ann Sansom, Instructor from In Praise of Men and other people (published by Bloodaxe in 2003)
19. Robert Seatter, Toast from On the Beach with Chet Baker (published by Seren in 2006)
20. Norman Silver, Txt Commndmnts from Laugh Out Loud (published by tXt café in 2006)
21. Martin Stannard, The Poem Of The Poster, The Poem Of The Film, The Poem Of Three Lines from Difficulties and Exultations (published by Smith/Doorstop in 2001)
22. Jonathan Stevenson, Now We Are Married from The Living Room (published by Arc Publications in 1994)
23. Frances Wilson, From This Window from Rearranging the Sky (published by Rockingham Press in 2004)
24. Anthony Wilson, I Try Not To Shout At Them from Nowhere Better Than This (published by Worple Press in 2002)
THIRD BATCH OF POSTERS
1. John Agard, Queue, Mixed Marriages, Metric Sceptic from We Brits (published by Bloodaxe in 2006)
2. Gillian Allnutt, The Makings of Marmalade from How the Bicycle Shone (published by Bloodaxe in 2007)
3. Connie Bensley, Advice from Private Pleasures (published by Bloodaxe in 2007)
4. Alan Brownjohn, Talking Animals from The Men Around Her Bed (published by Enitharmon Press in 2004)
5. Colette Bryce, A Spider from Self-Portrait in the Dark (published by Picador in 2008)
6. Gerry Cambridge, In the Supermarket from Madame Fi Fi’s Farewell (published by Luath Press in 2003)
7. Kate Clanchy, Driving to the Hospital from Newborn (published by Picador in 2004)
8. Polly Clark, Hedgehog from Take Me With You (published by Bloodaxe in 2005)
9. Imtiaz Dharker, What She Said, What She Said Later from Leaving Fingerprints (published by Bloodaxe in 2009)
10. Maura Dooley, What Every Woman Should Carry from Kissing A Bone (published by Bloodaxe in 1996)
11. Stephen Dunn, Five Roses in the Morning from What Goes On – Selected and New Poems 1995-2009 (published by W W Norton & Co in 2009)
12. Rhian Gallagher, Aunt Trish from Salt Water Creek (published by Enitharmon in 2003)
13. Mark Halliday, Summer Planning from Jab (published by University of Chicago Press in 2002)
14. Matt Harvey, To A Very Special Slope from The Hole in the Sum of My Parts (published by The Poetry Trust in 2005)
15. Michael Laskey, The Light from The Man Alone: New & Selected Poems (published by Smith/Doorstop in 2008)
16. Michael Mackmin, The Kiss from Twenty-Three Poems (published by HappenStance in 2007)
17. Jamie McKendrick, An Encroachment from Crocodiles & Obelisks (published by Faber in 2007)
18. Taha Muhammed Ali, Warning from So What: New & Selected Poems (published by Bloodaxe in 2007)
19. Dennis O’Driscoll, Home from New & Selected Poems (published by Anvil in 2004)
20. Dean Parkin, Luck from Just Our Luck (published by The Garlic Press in 2008)
21. Matt Simpson, Don’t Argue from Matt Wes and Pete (published by Macmillan in 1995)
22. George Szirtes, Water from New & Collected Poems (published by Bloodaxe in 2008)
23. C. K. Williams, Even So from Collected Poems (published by Bloodaxe in 2006)
24. Anna Woodford, Bookcase from Trailer (published by Five Leaves in 2007)
To request a copy of any of the above posters - to be emailed to you as a PDF file - please complete this form.
Learning & outreach
Introduction
Poetry has never been this good!
Year 10 pupil, Westbourne Sports College, Ipswich
Between 2004 and 2008, with substantial support from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, The Poetry Trust devised and delivered an innovative and exemplary four-year ‘poetry in education’ programme in the Eastern Region.
Poetry Matters and Beyond Poetry Matters enabled the Trust to employ its first part-time Learning & Outreach Worker and the projects included:
• termly creative writing workshops for teachers across Suffolk, South Norfolk & North Essex
• annual schools tour - 3 poets giving 12 performances over 5 days to 2,500 teenage pupils
• ‘poetry focus’ schools - sustained residencies in three Suffolk schools
A ‘toolkit’ for teachers designed to share best practice and tried-and-tested exercises for generating creativity in the classroom is available as a free download.
Learning & outreach
Introduction
The Poetry Trust has held a number of highly-rated, informal Poetry Reading Groups. If you’re interested to be part of the next Reading Group, please drop us an email or call 01986 835950 for more details.
In November 2009 Prize-winning poet and experienced tutor Esther Morgan led the Poetry Reading Group in Halesworth, Suffolk. Six enjoyable, informal evenings of reading and discussion, held fortnightly in Halesworth Library - a friendly introduction to today’s poetry for anyone aged 16 to 100.
Got to know new poets - fantastic! Enjoyed listening to how others experience the poem as it enriched my own experience and read poems in the group I would have perhaps skipped over if reading on my own…
Reading Group Member 2008
Esther Morgan was born in Kidderminster in 1970 and now lives in Bungay. She has worked as a writing tutor at UEA, an editor, a manager for The Poetry Archive and currently works for Renaissance, a region-wide museums project. Winner of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival First Collection Prize for Beyond Distance Calling (2001), her second volume The Silence Living in Houses followed in 2005. “These precise and understated poems” according to The Guardian “...throw the turmoil lurking just beneath the surface into sharp relief.”
Learning & outreach
Poetry Reading Group
Staff working at the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital met weekly from September 2008 to read and talk about contemporary poems. Poet/tutors Jane Anderson & Michael Laskey led twenty lunch-hour sessions with a small group that included speech therapists, lab technicians and nurses - all of whom were poetry ‘novices’.
Each meeting followed a general theme - for example ‘plants’, ‘animals’, ‘being a woman’, ‘abroad’ - and poems under discussion included work by Fleur Adcock, Eavan Boland, Carol Ann Duffy, Paul Durcan, Vicky Feaver, Ted Hughes, Kathleen Jamie, Derek Mahon, William Matthews, Elma Mitchell, Edwin Muir, Sylvia Plath, Sharon Olds, Theodore Roethke, R S Thomas and Chase Twichell.
Open discussions with the group brings different perspective to poems I would have missed on my own. I also read poems I would probably have dismissed from their title or opening lines.
At the end of March 2009, at their last official Poetry Treatment session, the group expressed an intention to continue to meet regularly, to share poems as well as their sandwiches.
It’s been a wonderful experience and I feel I have gained tremendously from it. Particularly in looking for meaning beyond just the words. Can we do it again?!
Learning & outreach
Introduction
This groundbreaking project 2008-2010 took poetry into the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH) in a series of imaginative ways. Staff, patients and visitors enjoyed poems on loo doors, in corridors, on restaurant tables and on hospital radio. And hospital staff took part in free poetry reading and writing workshops led by The Poetry Trust’s Jane Anderson and Michael Laskey.
Michael Laskey’s specially commissioned poem ‘Treatment’, inspired by the life, knowledge and experience of patients and staff, was unveiled at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital in September 2009.
Treatment
Back in hospital again today,
no fun, but let’s hear it for the porter
who stopped and asked was I lost.
And for the old boy I was sat next to
whose affability lightened
the wait in that windowless room.
He told me he’d worked from fourteen
on a fruit farm; how to save blackcurrants
from frost, they’d burn fuel oil in drums
all across the field, smoke it off.
With greengages though, how each tree
comes up with a bumper crop
every seventh year, never fails;
how unpropped branches breaking
will make it make new growth.
Michael Laskey
August 2009
The Poetry Treatment began in August 2008 and the initially year-long project was organised in partnership with the NNUH’s Hospital Arts Project and funded by Arts Council England, East, The Limbourne Trust and Norfolk County Council. With thanks to designers Silk Pearce for generous in-kind support. With an estimated 1 million readers reached in the first year and 70% strongly in favour of the poems on loo doors, The Poetry Trust and NNUH Hospital Arts Project continued the poster series for a further year.
Here’s one of the posters displayed on the loo doors, featuring a poem by Thomas Lux, one of The Poetry Trust’s many American friends.
Learning & outreach
Overview
For more than a decade The Poetry Trust ran creative workshops for teachers each term. This extensive experience has been condensed into a user-friendly new handbook - The Poetry Toolkit. This offers foolproof recipes for teaching poetry in the classroom and is available free as either a printed booklet or PDFdownload.
This toolkit provides fun, adaptable, tried-and-tested exercises to get young people - and indeed people of any age - confidently writing poetry. Primary and secondary school teachers who kept on coming to our workshops have repeatedly said what a revelation it was to try writing themselves - putting themselves in the position of their pupils. Dip into the toolkit which is based on direct contributions from leading poet-tutors - including Mandy Coe, Peter Sansom, Jackie Wills and Anthony Wilson - for warm-ups and group exercises based on poem-jigsaws, photographs, eavesdropping and telling lies! Printed copies of the toolkit were sent to all Suffolk, Essex and Norfolk schools who participated in the workshops.
Teachers Workshops were held most recently in Suffolk in March 2009. They were led by Jane Anderson, The Poetry Trust’s Learning & Outreach expert. Jane is a published poet who taught Secondary English for over twenty years. She has an MA in Creative Writing and now works in a variety of education settings running poetry workshops for pupils and teachers.
These workshops provided examples of exercises to take back to the classroom. They also offered the first-hand experience and buzz of writing and the space to consider how poetry can help pupils use language more effectively, in literacy and English and across the curriculum. These sessions were suitable for teachers from all key stages.
Really inspiring and gently informative: great for self-development as well as professional ideas.
Make sure you’re on the mailing list to receive advance notice of future dates and publications.
Additional support from
Inclusive School Improvement Service
Grateful thanks to the Ernest Cook Trust and the Barbara Whatmore Trust for supporting the Teachers Workshops
Learning & outreach
Overview
The Poetry Trust is dedicated to developing future readers and audiences for poetry and to encouraging the next generation of poets in the UK.
In the last 20 years, The Poetry Trust has pioneered many innovative outreach projects - many employing poets and using poetry to improve communication skills - and has worked with young children, teenagers, teachers, young offenders, prison inmates, hospital staff and patients, disability groups and the elderly.
If you have any questions about learning & outreach email us