… but, while we finalise matters, we would be pleased to receive enquiries about workshops, suitable for tutors or for individuals to work at home. e-mail our Administrator
Endings duo Fanfare series Her Wings of Glass series Perceptions of Time home page
The workshops are pitched at anyone wanting to enjoy a ‘work-out’ and/or kick-start a new selection of work. They involve many varied exercises to stimulate new writing, some involving experimenting with formal forms and other approaches you may not have tried. They include notes and discussion points, simulating thoughts and comments of the sort that might be exchanged between participants in a ‘live’ workshop.
Not with a bang…, by Anne Stewart
… “ but a whimper” – so says T S Eliot.
This workshop invites you to explore a few Endings or at least look them straight in the eye … Hopefully, you will also have a little fun. We are so focussed sometimes on being taken seriously that we forget to let our hair down now and again … but aren’t some of our favourite poems ones that make us laugh? The Endings we will explore here are uncomfortable ones – how humanity might meet its end, how the world, the solar system and beyond might cease to be, and how we personally might like to ‘shuffle off’ … These are challenging, but the aim is to enjoy some wild flights of imagination, exploit humorous possibilities and, perhaps, confront the odd fear or taboo along the way.
The Last Taboo?, Sarah Westcott
In this workshop: a space to explore ways of writing about, or ‘through’ death, this most abstract yet personal of subjects. In Western society, a focus on endings might be feared as morbid or even taboo. But poetry can transcend these silences to articulate ‘truths’ beyond our everyday reckonings, opening up spaces for thought, enquiry and even healing. Mortality, ever-present at the edge of our lives, has entered wider societal conversations, from planetary to personal concerns. Everyone has their own relationship with death, a relationship that changes throughout life. This workshop encourages you to approach the theme of endings with openness and curiosity – to be playful yet focused with the aim of generating fresh material using experimental approaches.
Workshops are supplied as pdf file(s) by e-mail. £12 for one or £20 for both.
A full-day workshop (5 hours plus). Price: £8. Supplied as pdf file by e-mail.
Time plays a central role in every aspect of our lives. The workshop explores ways in which we perceive time and how we represent these perceptions in writing.
Past experience crucially influences how we view the present and future. Earth’s distant past, cosmological time are difficult to imagine … Clock time is fixed but our impressions of time are subjective – an hour’s enjoyable exercise session will seem to be over quickly, but the minutes drag during a boring lecture…
8 workshops, each with a suggested minimum time of 2 hours and with extended working options to boost them up to 4-5 hours; overall, a full short poetry course. The series is drawn on poems in all sections of Fanfare, Second Light’s anthology published in November 2015. “This unique collection showcases some truly wonderful poetry: inspiring, enriching and consoling – a deeply pleasurable read.” – Hannah Lowe.
The copyright of these workshops is held by Dilys Wood. Full descriptions and prices here
8 workshops, each with a suggested minimum time of 2 hours and with extended working options to boost them up to 4-5 hours; overall, a full short poetry course. The series is linked with the eight sections of Her Wings of Glass, Second Light’s anthology published in October 2014, which Moniza Alvi has called “tremendously inspiring”.
The copyright of these workshops is held by Dilys Wood. Full descriptions and prices here