Come to a full start: Punctuating your *Poems* with Rishi Dastidar! 22/9/26

Back by popular demand, marvellously creative copywriter and poet, Rishi Dastidar guides you through more fun than you’ve probably ever had with the power of punctuation.

If you came to his first punctuation workshop for the Verandah earlier this year, you’ll know how useful, creative and enjoyable it was. Punctuation matters as much as with line breaks and word choice – it matters much more than we expect. This workshop will underline some of the principles of punctuation and extend further into nuance and experimentation.

You don’t need to have attended the previous workshop to enjoy this one and there will be new and surprising learnings and fun exercises for you if you came to his first punctuation workshop! (I hope to post more info about here when it comes my way.)

Punctuation can guide your readers through your poem, show them how to breathe while reading the poem or even confound or confuse them. A well-placed comma can change a meaning, pull a metaphorical rug from under them, making them go ‘oooooh’!

We will also be doing some wild writing based on escapades with punctuation. And Rishi will answer your punctuation questions too.

#Don't. Miss. It!  

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 £26 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 poetry world hs is a fellow of The Complete Works, and a consulting editor at The Rialto magazine. His poetry has been published by the Financial Times, New Scientist and the BBC, amongst many others. A fourth collection of poetry, Cherry Blossom at Nightbreak (Nine Arches Press) was published in 2026. His third collection, Neptune’s Projects (Nine Arches Press), was longlisted for the Laurel Prize, and a poem from it was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2024. He is editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century (Nine Arches Press), and co-editor of Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (Corsair). He reviews poetry for The Guardian, is a trustee of the Wordsworth Trust, and chair of Wasafiri, the leading magazine of international contemporary writin

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.)