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Participants in face to face courses must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and must comply with any other precautionary measures Writing NSW puts in place.

Keen to take your poetry writing to the next level? This six­-week poetry course, which follows on from Judith Beveridge’s Poesis: The Making of a Poem, is open to all writers with some experience in poetry.

This poetry writing and appreciation course will introduce you to the techniques required to move your work to the next level of expertise. A specific topic will be covered each week in an hour-long lecture followed by discussion of poems and workshopping of class members’ poems by an experienced teacher. Poems for discussion will be emailed to class members prior to each class.

Week-by-week Course Breakdown

Week 1
The Art of Detail: getting emotions into poetry.

Week 2
The Art of Play: poetry can be regarded as a kind of magic because it tries to change the way we see the world.

Week 3
The Poetry of Place: The Irish have a poetic tradition called the Dinnseanchas, poems commemorating the meanings of places.

Week 4
Grammatical Structures: hypotaxis and parataxis: how sentence structure shapes meaning.

Week 5
The Art of Prosody: Anglo-Saxon poetry; iambic and trochaic meters.

Week 6
The Dramatic Monologue: Dramatic monologues are a way of expressing the views of a character and offering the reader greater insights into feelings.

Expected Learning Outcomes

Class members will:

1. Take away with them a strong sense of the discipline and craft that goes into poetry writing.
2. Improve their critical skills and ability to appreciate a wide range of poems.
3. Gain insight into form, rhythm, imagery and structure.

This workshop takes place at Writing NSW in Sydney.

Participant Requirements

Participants need to have some prior knowledge of poetry. Pen and paper, laptop optional. Please read our FAQ before enrolling.

If you are feeling unwell and experiencing any COVID-related symptoms on the day of the course, you must stay at home and contact us to let us know. As a participant in this course, you will be required to follow all COVID safety measures in place by Writing NSW to ensure the health and wellbeing of our community.

If you have questions about this course and/or COVID-safe guidelines, please contact us.

More from Writing NSW

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