Things Japanese

The Writing School

Join Alex Corrin-Tachibana, author of Sing me down from the dark, on this  six week online poetry course exploring all things Japanese.

Things Japanese is a 6-week evening course with Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana, providing a deep dive into Japanese culture and poetical forms. The course will introduce Japanese poetic forms, such as the haibun, tanka, zuihitsu and senryu, and seek to demonstrate what kind of pieces of writing these might be a good fit for. The course will reference American gurus of Japanese form, such as Kimiko Hahn and Eugenia Leigh, and will use sample poems from Japan, America and Britain, where writers have exploited these forms. We will also consider Japanese cultural concepts such as wa, (和) (harmony) and wabi sabi (侘寂), loosely translated as 'the beauty of imperfection'.We will explore how, as poets, we might draw on these ideas to inform our writing practice. Another session will look at the idea of writing from a gaijin, or outsider perspective, and how we might write between cultures. The course is highly suitable for anyone who has already enjoyed Alex's Japan-inspired workshops with The Writing School, as it will introduce brand new materials and new participants are also very warmly welcome.Alex's Masters in Japanese, 10-year sojourn in Japan, experience of Japanese family life, and research into Japanese culture and poetic forms, means that she is ideally placed to throw light on Japanese sensibilities and less familiar poetic forms. Expect stimulating sessions to fire up your writing, with close readings, lively discussions and plenty of generative prompts.Six week online poetry course running from Wednesday 8th May - Wednesday 12th June,7-9pmThe course will take place on Zoom and all links and material will be sent out shortly before the course begins.About your tutor with The Writing School: Alexandra Corrin-TachibanaAlexandra Corrin-Tachibana's first collection, Sing me down from the dark, was published by SALT, in 2022, and is in its 3rd issue. It has been widely reviewed and is recommended by The Poetry Society. She is also published in numerous anthologies and magazines, such as The North, P.N. Review, Poetry Wales, The Moth and The Alchemy Spoon and she edited issue 11 of The Alchemy Spoon. Her zuihitsu poems have been highly commended in The Winchester Poetry Prize and longlisted in the National Poetry competition, and new zuihitsu and haibun poems, which will form part of her manuscript for her second collection, will appear in the next issue of The North. She has been a teacher for 27 years and lives in Newcastle-upon-Tyne with her teenage son, Ryoma. She has performed at many venues around the UK, as well as at The America Writers' conference in Portland, Oregon. She is now is planning to promote her book and do research for her second collection, in Japan, later this year. She holds Masters' degrees in Japanese, and in Writing Poetry, and has been placed and shortlisted for several poetry prizes including The Troubadour, The Fish Prize, Oxford Brookes International Poetry Prize, and Leeds Poetry Festival Award.

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Things Japanese

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