Creative Saturday: Poetry and Work

Course details

“Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.

     And he answered, saying:

     You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth….”

Kahlil Gibran 

In this Creative Saturday we will look at different ways to write about jobs and work, from the ode to documentary poetics. Through varied writing exercises, we will explore our own paid and unpaid employment as well as our family’s labour as a subject for poetry, creating a history from the ground-up, while considering how the poem too is a form of work, the fruit of a different kind of labour.

John Challis is the author of The Resurrectionists (Bloodaxe, 2021), The Black Cab (Poetry Salzburg, 2017), and most recently, Hallsong (National Trust, 2022), written during a residency at Seaton Delaval Hall. His poems have appeared in Poetry London, The Poetry Review, The Telegraph, and his poem, ‘Thames’, was a poem of the week in the Guardian. He teaches Creative Writing at York St John University.

Course fee: £40

In the unlikely event of the course being cancelled, a full refund will be given. Otherwise refunds are not available.