Exploring Poetic Concepts and Forms - Online Poetry Workshop Series

Welcome to Exploring Poetic Concepts! In this friendly and welcoming online workshop series, we will learn different approaches to writing poetry. If you are new to poetry, this will give you a great overview, and if you are a more experienced poet you can use it to learn more about specific forms or to stimulate new writing.

Sessions are every month and can be taken as a whole course or individually, as you choose.

Level: beginner to intermediate - but experienced poets may also enjoy learning new forms or approaches!

The sessions are as follows:

Week One: Closed forms and the Sonnet

You may have studied metre, blank verse, iambic pentameter, or the sonnet at school and long ago forgotten what they meant. This session is perfect for you to refresh or discover these concepts! Join us as we read a range of wildly different examples, discuss them and write our own.

Week 2: Rhythm and the Ballad

Whether you are writing in blank verse or free verse, rhythm is important in poetry because it stems from the oral tradition. In this session, we will also focus on the ballad form, which masterfully combines rhythm and musicality. We will read a wide range of examples and then we will write our own!

Week 3: Musicality and the Villanelle

You may have heard of eye rhymes, slant rhymes, alliteration or assonance without knowing what these terms mean. In this session, we will study in more detail the different types of rhymes and sound plays that poets use, and explore the villanelle form. We will read a wide range of examples and then we will write our own!

Week 4: Imagery, Figurative Language and the Sestina

In this session, you will discover the importance of figures of speech, metaphors, and similes in writing evocative poems. We will learn from some of the best examples around and you will also learn how to write your own sestina.

Week 5: Five Senses, "Show Don't Tell" and the Ghazal

In this session, you will enrich your descriptions by using the five senses and avoid the pitfall of showing rather than telling in your writing. You will also experiment with the ghazal form.

Week 6: Tone and the Ode

In poetry, tone refers to the writer's attitude or feeling toward the subject matter, conveyed through language and structure. Tone is an often overlooked element. In this session, you will play with different tones and angles to create multiple moods and write original odes.

Week 7: Subject Matter, Symbols and the Pantoum

Are you writing about a recurring theme and afraid of repeating yourself? This course will help you use symbols to write about a topic in a unique way. You will also discover the pantoum form. We will read a wide range of examples and then we will write our own!

Week 8:Narrative Arc and the Elegy

Some writers choose to tell stories in their poems, so it is important to think about how to tell them. This session will teach you storytelling techniques and more about the elegy form. We’ll read a wide range of examples and then we will write our own!

We will then host an open mic night so we can read and celebrate the work we have created. This will be scheduled later on.

Julie Irigaray is a French Basque writer based in Birmingham. Her pamphlet Whalers, Witches and Gauchos was published by Nine Pens (2021) and her poetry has been featured on BBC Radio 4. Her poems, articles and translations have appeared in over sixty publications (The Rialto, Ambit, Magma) and her poems have won or been finalists in nineteen poetry competitions, including The Bridport Poetry Prize 2024. She works as a creative writing tutor at City Lit and the Midlands Arts Centre.

Feedback from Julie's last session for EWS was highly positive, including the following: 'I am usually not one to choose the highest scores across the board, but I was really impressed by the tutor, the diverse examples of writing (with many more to read later), the exercises and the 'spirit' and depth of our discussions. Thank you, Julie and EWS.'

NB the time is Central European Time and so this is 6-8pm UK time weekly on Sunday evenings GMT.