Poetry Courses
Study online or in London
From introductory courses to the more in-depth longer courses, revisit classic works or enjoy discovering new poets, sharing your views in lively class discussions.
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- The seven ages of poetryCourse start date: Tue 16 Jan 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Julian BirkettJoin us to get an overview of how English poetry has developed over the centuries by looking closely at some classic poems and seeing how ideas of the time shaped their form and their subject matter – from epics made to be sung in the mead hall to the concentrated elegance of the Renaissance sonnet to the melancholy of the Romantic ode to the free verse of modern times.Full fee £229.00 Senior fee £183.00 Concession £149.00 - Towards freedom: from Christina Rossetti to Sylvia PlathCourse start date: Tue 23 Jan 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Laurie SmithWe look at how some women poets challenged the expectations of their families and the society in which they lived (reflected in the male-dominated publishing world of their time) to create highly original poetry which changed people’s views of what poetry could achieve.
).Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £149.00 Concession £97.00 - The poetry of modernity: Baudelaire, Dickinson, Rilke, MandelstamCourse start date: Thu 25 Jan 2024
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Stephen WinfieldFollow the paths taken by four of the most courageous, life-affirming, uncompromisingly individual poets of the modern era, as they confront the challenges of psychological, sexual and artistic alienation (Baudelaire), religious and political conformity (Dickinson and Mandelstam), and of a world lost to materialism and the march of technology, devoid of all spirituality (Rilke: “You must change your life”).
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00 - Exploring literature: Irish Poetry in the 20th CenturyCourse start date: Tue 30 Jan 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Niall CulliganIn this introductory course, we will read and discuss Irish poetry from across the twentieth century, examining how poets responded to cultural and political issues, such as Irish Independence, religion, and the Troubles. Poets will include: W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, Louis MacNeice, Patrick Kavanagh, Derek Mahon, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, and many others. - Romantic poets of the south westCourse start date: Thu 1 Feb 2024
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Woody RiverWith its wild, rugged terrain and history of radicalism, the West Country was an ideal setting for the Romantic imagination. Drawing on a selection of poems, letters, journals and manifestos, this course explores how the landscape and people of the South West shaped the ideas and inspired the poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley and Keats.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £149.00 Concession £97.00 - The world of Bob DylanCourse start date: Thu 2 May 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Richard NilandThis class explores the work of Bob Dylan, examining his song writing, musical style, and persona in the context of American cultural, political, and musical history, exploring how Dylan engages with American culture through his absorption and reworking of multifarious aspects of both historical and modern Americana.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00 - Struggle to be heard: Rimbaud, Cavafy, Tsvetaeva, Binta BreezeCourse start date: Thu 2 May 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Laurie SmithWe look at four poets who struggled to be heard or accepted because their work was so different from what their society expected. What were the barriers they had to overcome and how did they win through to become admired and highly regarded? What made one of the poets stop writing at the age of 21 and the other three continue for the rest of their lives? What makes the poetry of all of them so original, and what can we learn from their resilience?Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £69.00 Concession £45.00 - 'A terrible beauty is born': poetry in revolutionary timesCourse start date: Mon 13 May 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Laurie SmithIs W H Auden right that “poetry makes nothing happen”? We look at how poets have helped people to understand, cope with and sometimes resist oppression in revolutionary periods from the late18th century to the present.Full fee £239.00 Senior fee £191.00 Concession £155.00 - Keats and eternityCourse start date: Sun 19 May 2024
Location on this date: Off Site
Tutors: Laurie SmithIn the house where many of them were written, we will explore why Keats’s poems are regarded as exceptionally beautiful. How did he achieve this? We will see that it wasn’t luck or simply inspiration, but the result of choices which reflect important aspects of Keats’ personality. Includes ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, Ode to a Grecian Urn’ and ‘To Autumn’.
This course will take place at Keats House, 10 Keats Grove, Hampstead, London NW3 2RR.Full fee £49.00 Senior fee £39.00 Concession £32.00 - Six poets: the 20th century female experienceCourse start date: Thu 30 May 2024
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Woody RiverThrough the words of six female poets from different countries spanning a hundred years, we will explore what it meant to be a woman in the 20th Century. The poems we will read cover a diverse range of topics such as desire and sexuality, loneliness and race, gender and feminism. Includes poems by Charlotte Mew, Anna Akhmatova, Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, Forugh Farrokhzad, Gwendolyn Brooks and Carol Ann Duffy.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £149.00 Concession £97.00
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