Join this expedition through the wild, wide-ranging places of poetry in Britain. Welcoming both new and experienced readers of poetry, this course is an invitation to explore, in detail, poems within the landscapes where poets live and work. From the garden pond to a mountain lake, Westminster Bridge to the Severn estuary, students will travel the length and breadth of the British Isles through the work of classic and contemporary poets, learning how to read both the lie of the land and the line on the page.
Each session will centre on collaborative close readings, with students carefully mapping out new terrain together. The course sets off on a tour of poetic structure, introducing students to form, rhyme and metre as well as the physical structures — the sheds, huts, cars and kitchen tables — where poems are built. This ranges from Dylan Thomas’ ‘house on stilts’ above the Taf estuary to W S Graham’s ‘untidy dreadful table’ in Madron, Cornwall, stopping off at the service station with Ted Hughes on the way to travel longer distances with William Wordsworth, Alice Oswald, Sean Borodale, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett and Vahni Capildeo.
Combining playful and practical exercises throughout the course, students will have the opportunity to respond creatively as well as critically to the reading material. By the end of the week, students will be confident and adventurous readers, able to plan and pursue their own path through a poem.
Learning outcomes
- To develop close reading skills and gain confidence in reading and analysing contemporary poetry;
- To engage with the idea of poetic practice, embedding close reading within an appreciation of a text’s wider context and the smaller practicalities of a writer’s process;
- To explore our own reading as a creative practice in conversation with poetic practice.
