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Poetry Writing Course

This new poetry writing course commenced in May 2010. Please call the Institute  0800-801994  to get details sent to you.

Meanwhile, If you’ve never written a poem before, consider these ten steps for poets, suggested by Tobias Hill.

10. Go walkabout
Don’t stay in. Get on your bike. Sit in the park. Skip the bus or train to work and walk instead. Get lost on the way out for a pint of milk or a loaf of bread. Loiter on corners. Spy on your neighbours. Read over shoulders. Listen to strangers talking.
Time Out: Write Up Your Street is looking for a poem about your city. Before you start to write, go out and take a second look at the London you know best. Keep a pen and paper on you, and take notes.

9. Close your eyes
Seeing is believing. Make sure your reader sees your city through your eyes – but don’t stop there. Give your reader eyes and ears, a nose and hands. Catch the atmosphere of the streets outside. Go out, close your eyes, and listen to your neighbourhood. Try it in the morning and by night. Smell your city, touch it; taste it.
Make sure your reader knows your town as well as you know it yourself.

8. Don’t stop at one
Don’t stick with one poem. Write two. Write ten. Every poem you write will make the next one stronger. Don’t just wait for inspiration. Work at it and you will get better.
Look up these three kinds of poem and write one of each: haiku: free verse: sonnet.
Choose the one that turns out best, then write another.

7. Read poetry
Start with the poems of today: find five living poets you enjoy. Look for them online, in bookshops and libraries. Don’t write like anyone except yourself, but explore what poetry can do inside your head. See what works, what you like and what you don’t like. Explore.

6. Love language
Think of your poems as music. Read your lines aloud. Treat your words like drums.
Feel out currents and rhythms. Play around with rhymes and repetitions. Don’t make the music perfect unless you think your community is perfect. Echo your neighbourhood as it is.

5. What is poetry?
Ask yourself the question. Argue it with a friend. Is poetry rhythm and rhyme?
What makes a poem poetry? Is there poetry elsewhere - in music, dance, painting or prose? Is there poetry in your city? If there is, then what is poetry?

4. Write about what you know
Time Out: Write Up Your Street is looking for a poem about the real London. Don’t write about Beefeaters unless you live in the Tower of London. Don’t write about the Queen unless you’ve had her round for dinner. Don’t write a picture postcard. Don’t make your city nice or pretty unless you really think it is. Don’t  use yesterday’s language. Don’t look for poemy words.
Write what you see outside your window, and write about it using words everyone knows.

3. Write about what you don’t know
Don’t stick to the facts if you don’t want to. Make things up. Fill in the gaps. Picture your city, then turn up the volume. Stories can be true even when they’re only stories, and so can poems, even if you’re using your imagination.

2. Show - don’t tell
No one likes to be told what to do. Don’t tell your reader what to think. Show them the city on your doorstep. Describe your world, but don’t explain it. Let them work it out for themselves. Let the reader be creative too. A writer once wrote to a friend who asked him about writing: ‘Show me the glint of light on broken glass’. Find your broken glass. That’s where the best poetry is.

1. Be fresh. Be original
Write something completely new. Give the reader something they’ve never read before. No one knows your city like you do, so be generous with it. Read all the poetry you can, but don’t write like anyone but yourself. Play around with words. Write a poem about your town that no one else could ever write.

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