Writing and Publishing Poetry

In this five-week online course designed by poet, performer and publishing professional Sophia Blackwell (Poetry Writers' Handbook) you’ll receive invaluable insight into the process of taking your poetry – and career as a poet – to the next level.

Writing and Publishing Poetry will guide you through the key milestones in the career of a poet, from developing your voice to finding publishing options that work for you. Students will have the opportunity to workshop their poetry, try different verse forms and editing methods, as well as create original new work, with the aim of this practical and specific approach being to map out your future as a poet. The final two sessions will focus on guidance around curating a debut, next collection or pamphlet, with a deep dive into publishing and self-publishing options that will provide essential next steps.

This course includes:

- Five online sessions, 1.5 hours in length, for a maximum of 20 students

- Practical workshops with takeaway exercises to be applied to your own work and put each session's learning into practice

- A private online forum, to share discussion and writing throughout the course

- A copy of the Poetry Writers' Handbook

- A discounted rate on poetry titles from Bloomsbury Publishing

As an optional extra at a cost of £50, you can get bespoke feedback from Sophia on up to 1,000 words of your poetry. This could be in the form of one long poem or several shorter ones. If the poems are part of a wider collection you can include a one page outline of the collection, including themes and form. 
 

Schedule

Session 1: Getting and staying inspired

Bring one poem you have written and one poem by someone you admire and love; come prepared to talk about how they influence your work and what qualities they have that resonate with you. We’ll be swapping those poems by other writers and trying on their approaches in your own work.

• Poems that inspire you and writing exercises
• Giving yourself permission to create
• Your manifesto: what you want your poetry to do
• Highlights and challenges from your experiences to date

Session 2: Successful editing, structure and verse forms

We will go through an example of a live edit and approaches to polishing poems, with real-life examples and advice on where to start – and stop. The second half of this session will take a technical approach to creating a poem, showing how strict forms can be liberating.

• Editing techniques including reading aloud
• Editing with performance in mind
• Formats, forms and poems in translation
• Beautiful constraint: using structure including lists, recipes, meditations and praise poems

Session 3: Feeding Your Poetry

This session will focus on thinking outside the page and developing your voice in an open, experimental way. It will include music, lyrics, collage and cut-ups and the goal is to create a poem you would otherwise not have written, and that will hopefully go on to inform your future work. This session will help you break out of the structures you are familiar with and refresh your poetic voice, finishing with advice on making experimentation and self-nurture part of your creative practice.

• Thinking outside the page: what inspires you?
• Songs, lyrics and music
• Collage and cut-ups – trying on someone else’s voice.

Session 4: Curating a collection or pamphlet

A nuts-and-bolts approach to how you might take a disparate folder of poems and turn them into a collection or pamphlet. Choose which option is best for you in terms of structure and format, using examples of recent collections that do something different, with advice on submitting to publishers.

• The chronological or narrative approach, the cyclical approach, the mixtape approach, the theme-based approach, and a quick look at verse novels
• What poetry editors are looking for and what you want from a publisher.
• Traditional publishing opportunities, ways to meet publishers and stand out from the crowd.
• Connecting with the poetry community

Session 5: Publishing, self-publishing and next steps

Bringing it all together, the final session is a deep dive into the wealth of opportunities in today’s market for traditional publishing and self-publishing. We’ll be looking at the pros and cons of various approaches from the do-it-yourself style to a publishing services partnership, or working with an established publisher.

• Finding the best suppliers, what to spend and avoiding vanity publishers
• Creating a schedule and launching your book or pamphlet
• Marketing, publicity, and events
• Your poetry career: a highly focused look at opportunities to make money, setting your rates and what a poet’s finances look like