Creative Writing in English

About

Leontia Flynn will conduct a six-day course in writing poetry in the summer of 2024. Participants will study the elements of writing a poem by reading closely a variety of poems by historical as well as contemporary poets. Summer school students will have time for independent writing in response to set exercises, and sessions in which they receive feedback on their work from the tutor and other participants.

Each morning session will introduce a new topic/aspect/form of poetry with example poems by a variety of historical and contemporary poets. Over the course of the week, students will consider the craft of writing poems, as well as their inspirational origins, and analyse in close detail how a good poem works.

Summer school students will have time for independent writing, and will receive feedback on their work from other participants. By developing and redrafting their poetry in response to discussion and workshops, as well as through reading and experiment, the summer school will give students the chance to work on individual poems, as well as to build up a body of work. Participants will study the elements of writing a poem by reading closely a variety of poems by historical as well as contemporary poets. Summer school students will have time for independent writing in response to set exercises, and sessions in which they receive feedback on their work from the tutor and other participants.

By developing and redrafting their poetry in response to group discussion and workshops, as well as through reading and experiment, the summer school will give students the chance to begin and revise individual poems, as well as to build up a body of work.

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Seamus Heaney wrote that poetry involved both craft and technique. Craft is what you can learn from other verse, ‘the skill of making’, while technique is more instinctive and involves letting our mind ‘dilate and approach as a thought or a theme or a phrase’. The process also involves finding a voice – getting a sense of yourself into your own words.

This course allows students to consider and practice all these aspects of writing a poem. We’ll consider the very first shadowy idea for a poem and examine how careful thought, attention and observation might bring this into focus. We’ll look too at how a poem’s quality of expression creates ‘flow’ and movement, carrying the reader to the end of the poem.

Examining practices of craft, observed through set poems, we’ll also think about how learning and obeying rules like rhyme, metre, verbal patterns and word order can open a poem up beyond the poet’s original intentions. Set forms are a chance to experiment, to make unexpected connections and associations, and to take the poem in unexpected directions.

Over the course of a week we’ll see how poems can unfold in very different ways to successfully find their final shape. In response students will work to craft their own poems in a way that best reflects their unique voice and preoccupations. On the final day, there will be an opportunity for students to present their poetry.

Course leader

Leontia Flynn Miriam McIlfatrick-Ksenofontov

Target group

This summer course is suitable for people interested in writing poetry, from relative beginners to more experienced writers.
During the course you will be expected to attend workshops and seminars, submit your work for peer review and create a portfolio of your own writing.

The course is limited to 15 participants.

Fee info