Masterclass: Poetry Course Descriptor

Course Overview

The course is designed to guide students through the process of writing a short poetry collection. Students will gain hands-on experience of the sophisticated poetic techniques writers use to create expressive, persuasive and creatively satisfying explorations of language and form. Through lectures, webinars, writing and discussion activities, and poetry workshops, students will be equipped with the practical craft skills of 21st-century poetics. They will experiment with the conventions of form, imagery and sound in creative and effective ways. Students will benefit from dedicated tutor feedback on their work in progress at regular intervals on the course, as well as peer critiques.
Students are encouraged to take themselves seriously as poets from week one of this course. There is a focus on contextualising students’ practices in relation to historical and contemporary traditions. They will also consider both conventional and innovative ways of making poems such as sonnets, odes, erasure poems and concrete poetry. Students will also engage with modern publishing practices. This is a practice-based course with a strong emphasis on workshopping and discussion. Students will additionally reflect on their individual creative processes and learn to see how the writing and editing journey can itself generate knowledge.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and range of learning resources to orientate and engage students in their studies. All scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course are delivered online via the VLE. These may include:

• Lectures
• Readings
• Learning Activities
• Discussion Forums
• Creative Writing Workshops
• Webinars

Faculty also hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback individually.
Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study.
Indicative total learning hours for this course: 300 – typically including induction, course activities, consolidation or revision and assessment activity hours.

Assessment

Both formative and summative assessment are used as part of this course, with formative opportunities typically embedded within interactive teaching activities delivered via the VLE.

Summative Assessments

Indicative assessment elements:

• Set Exercises typically comprise assessment of students’ editorial contributions during a set period (e.g. in Creative Writing Workshops).
• Portfolio submissions typically comprise at least one original creative work and an accompanying critical or professional practice component.

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on assignments, through email or the VLE) or oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours).

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is for a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Femi, Caleb, Poor (Penguin Books, 2020)
• Green, Roland (ed.), Princeton Encyclopaedia of Poetry and Poetics (Princeton University Press, 2012)
• Hamilton, Nathan (ed.), Dear World and Everyone In It (Bloodaxe, 2013)
• Noel-Tod, Jeremy (ed.), The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem: From Baudelaire to Ann Carson (Penguin Books, 2018)
• Paterson, Don (ed.), 101 Sonnets (Faber and Faber, 2012)
• Yakich, Mark, Poetry: A Survivor’s Guide, 2nd edn (Bloomsbury, 2022)

Indicative Topics

Note: Comprehensive and current topics for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative topics provided below are used as a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Rhythm, rhyme and sound
• Getting published: competitions and journals
• The sonnet and fixed forms
• The epic/sequence
• Performance poetry
• Visual poetry and radical poetics