‘Chaos into fourteen lines’: writing contemporary sonnets

Edna St Vincent Millay saw writing sonnets as putting ‘Chaos into fourteen lines’. This workshop will explore how American examples, including Diane Seuss, Terrance Hayes and Danez Smith, might give us useful templates for shaping apparently chaotic experiences (including love, politics, parenthood, illness) into the semblance of order. We’ll look at rhymed and unrhymed sonnets, and how the volta can be a helpful tool in either expanding or turning sonnets around.

About Robert Hamberger

Robert Hamberger has been shortlisted and highly commended for Forward prizes. He has been awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship and won The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2023. His poetry has twice featured as the Guardian Poem of the Week and in British, American, Irish and Japanese anthologies. Blue Wallpaper (Waterloo Press) was shortlisted for the 2020 Polari Prize. His memoir A Length of Road: finding myself in the footsteps of John Clare was published by John Murray in 2021. His fifth collection Nude Against A Rock (Waterloo Press) was published in 2024. His website is www.roberthamberger.co.uk

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.