POETRY STUDIO The Dark: pleasures & possibilities

In her essay ‘Why I adore the night’, Jeanette Winterson writes:

Food, fire, walks, dreams, cold, sleep, love, slowness, time, quiet, books, seasons – all these things, which are not really things, but moments of life – take on a different quality at night-time, where the moon reflects the light of the sun, and we have time to reflect what life is to us, knowing that it passes, and that every bit of it, in its change and its difference, is the here and now of what we have.

Life is too short to be all daylight. Night is not less; it's more.

As we pass the winter solstice, and the days slowly grow longer, let's embrace the dark inspired by poets including Sappho, Ye Hui, Louise Glück, Humberto Ak’Abal, Marjorie Lofti, Maya C. Popa and Joe Carrick-Varty.

About the Studio

The Poetry Studio is a hospitable online space for new and experienced poets to come together to read poems in English and in translation, to inspire writing in session. Informal discussion on a theme provides an opportunity to reflect on individual poetics, and structured writing exercises are designed to seed new poems.

Focussing on the experience in the moment - creative process rather than product - there is no element of critique.

“The poetry studio session worked really well for me - the structure, the focus, the carefully selected poems, and the time to write and share. The space you created enabled me to write something I'd been wanting to for some time.” - Claire

Sessions take place on Zoom and last 3 hours with short breaks. Places are limited, to keep the group small.

You will come away having experienced poems by poets familiar and new from around the world, as well as

• the beginnings of 2-3 new poems
• takeaways for further reading and writing
• strategies to develop your work further

About Shazea Quraishi

Shazea is a Pakistani-born Canadian poet, translator and educator based in London.

In her latest book of poetry, The Glimmer (Bloodaxe Books, 2022), set in an artists' colony in Mexico, a taxidermist and other artists reflect on the impulse to make work and meaning in a world where value is increasingly monetised.

As we are told... 'the form is always the measure of obsession' and this is a good summary of the emotional core of this remarkable book. In order to write, to sing, to taxidermy, we must have obsession. This is a poetry collection as a creative retreat that I didn't want to end. - Ellora Sutton in Mslexia

Other books include The Taxidermist (Verve Poetry Press, 2020), The Art of Scratching (Bloodaxe Books, 2015) and The Courtesans Reply (flipped eye publishing, 2012). Shazea's poems have appeared in UK and US publications including The Guardian, The Financial Times, Poetry Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, ‘Poetry: A Writer's Guide and Anthology’ (Bloomsbury Academic, U.S. 2023), ‘Mapping the Future: The Complete Works Poets’ (Bloodaxe Books, 2023) and ‘The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write’ (Saqi Books, 2017).

As a tutor/mentor, Shazea has worked with Arvon, Translators in Schools, English PEN, Exiled Writers, and more. She has designed and delivered poetry courses at undergraduate level, and led poetry workshops in adult education, prisons, refugee centres, festivals, theatres and museums.

A Complete Works alumna, she is a tutor with the Poetry School and a senior writer in residence with Living Words, an arts charity working in creative partnership with people impacted by dementia or mental health concerns.