Poetry Day: February

About

Taking inspiration from Charleston itself, join us for a day of poetry at Charleston, designed to give you the inspiration, tools and guidance necessary to begin your journey into poetry.

Expect a day full of creative activities, with coffee and biscuit breaks, plus an hour for lunch where you can explore the gardens or enjoy a meal at Charleston's café.

The day will begin with a private tour of the house, where you will be encouraged to engage with it a space as well as notice the objects within it as future material for a poem. We will begin our session with a few 'loosening-up' exercises, designed to silence self-criticism and get the ink flowing. We will then explore the power and place of objects in our conceptions of 'home', looking at poems by Louis MacNeice, Laura Scott and Theodore Roethke amongst others. Through a series of guided exercises, we will begin drafting our own poems.

In the afternoon we will work on our drafts, introducing editing techniques that distil, tighten and clarify. By the end of the day you will leave with pages of notes, writing and editing techniques, a finished poem and new poetry friends!

This is just the beginning! Everything you learn in this one day can be used again, to prompt new poems in your writing process.