Dot. Dash – Go! Punctuation for Poets with Rishi Dastidar 29/1/25

Punctuation is fascinating, fun and essential for all poets. Marvelously creative copywriter and poet, Rishi Dastidar is our host to lead us through fundamental foundations and flights of experimentation in punctuation for practicing poets, a perfect workshop to reset our poetry new year.

We know words matter in our poems. But what of the near invisible scaffolding we might use – or not use? Punctuation, or its absence, is what gives shape to our work – what powers our poems, even. It instructs readers and helps them to receive what we write. Adding a comma could change the meaning or give your readers the 'ahh' reaction you want. And what happens if you don’t use any punctuation at all? The weight that specific marks carry means that we must pay close attention to their role, and what we want to deploy them to do.

We’ll canter through the why and how when considering commas, stops, dashes and more. There’ll be a practical discussion where you can pose your punctuation questions to Rishi.

1.5 hours long

Start time: 9am UK time // 5pm Perth Australia // 7.30pm Adelaide // 6.30 Darwin // 7pm Brisbane // 8pm Sydney, AEST // 10pm NZ

Times on the homepage of this site are in London, UK Timezone, but when you add the event to your calendar it should be correct for your local time zone.

You can check your timezone against London UK time here: https://greenwichmeantime.com/time-gadgets/time-zone-converter/

Cost £24 GBP (with cost effective exchange via STRIPE)

Rishi Dastidar has parallel careers as a poet and critic, and copywriter and brand strategist. In the latter, he has worked for a wide number of brands including O2, and has twice served as a jury member for the D&AD Awards. In the former, his poetry has been published by Financial Times, New Scientist and the Southbank Centre amongst many others. A poem from his third collection Neptune’s Projects (Nine Arches Press) was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2024. He is a regular poetry reviewer for The Guardian, and is chair of Wasafiri, the magazine for international creative and critical writing. 

Zoom link and materials will be sent by email at least 2 days prior. If you don’t receive it get in touch with me.

More events here https://www.cathdrake.com

This event will be recorded. Our workshops are intended as live and interactive. However, there are a small number of tickets for those keen to come who cannot make the date of this workshop that are  'recording only' tickets to be purchased in advance ONLY for those who can't make the date. If you buy a live ticket and don't turn up on the day, you can't access the recording – sorry, it's not a fall back. You can buy a live OR recorded ticket. This is because we primarily want poets to come and participate in live workshops. 'Recording only' tickets allow access to listen to a recording of the workshop during the 2 weeks following the workshop. (Note that we may share the recording at a future time to new participants.)