Poems to Poets: Writing poems about poets and poetry

Writing poems about poets is often seen as something writers do when they’ve exhausted the real and holy subjects, like family, place, history and the natural world. But writing about poets and poetry can often unleash gold in our own writing, and in this workshop we’ll look at a range of approaches. These will include writing letters of celebration to our favourite poets, writing about writing or using structures which include bits of other poems within them, writing elegies for poets, and writing manifestos or addressing the reader directly. When poets really hit it, they’re able to speak for us, to express the most tender and personal parts of ourselves, the things we find difficult or thought unsayable. Who’d have thought that celebrating that might itself be a great road to an important poem? We’ll draw on some fabulous writing by poets including Raymond Carver, Stephen Dobyns, Tishani Doshi and Chen Chen.

About Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards’ first collection, My Family and Other Superheroes (Seren, 2014), received the Costa Poetry Award and the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award. It was shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. His second collection, Gen (Seren, 2018), also received the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award, and in 2019 his poem about Newport Bridge was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. He lives in Crosskeys, South Wales.

Zoom

These workshops will be conducted via Zoom. We have put together this simple 'How To' document to help you download Zoom, join a meeting, and navigate around the meeting features (such as adjusting video and audio, uploading files, and sharing screens).

You will receive a confirmation email from Ticket Tailor with your ticket and the Zoom invitation, containing the meeting link and Meeting ID & Password.

Someone from The Poetry Business team will be on hand prior to each workshop to offer additional help in getting connected.

There is usually a lot of interest in our workshops: in the interest of fairness, please limit yourself to one workshop ticket in every two week period.

Bursary Spaces

There are two bursary spaces available per workshop for writers from groups that are under-represented in contemporary poetry (for instance because of ethnic background) or who are experiencing financial hardship. If you would like to apply for one of these bursary places, please contact workshops@poetrybusiness.co.uk

Refunds

If you no longer wish to attend the workshop please let us know by emailing us. We ask for 3 working days' notice before the workshop starts in order to offer a full refund, and enable us to offer the place to someone else.

Though we will do all we can to help you get set up with the technology it is the participants' responsibility to ensure that their camera, microphone and other computer settings are configured correctly. Please contact us (workshops@poetrybusiness.co.uk) if you are concerned about getting set up for Zoom.