welcome

from Coffee-House Poetry organiser, Anne-Marie Fyfe

September (see right) & they’re gathering outside already – not hatching Hitchcockian plots, just planning the winter vacation, so like humans… Or is it that we’re so bird-like, so ornithologically inspired, as writers, in our desire to metamorph, take off, to wing it, to glide, to swoop, to soar, to see the earth-bound world from a bird’s-eye perspective?
A chance to try out your creative wings this autumn: email me asap on coffpoetry@aol.com if interested.

And a reminder that our 2023 judges for the Troubadour International Poetry Prize are Mona Arshi, Visiting Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, & Tom Sleigh, Distinguished Professor at New York’s Hunter College.

£3,500 in prizes, with winners invited to read with judges (live & online) at West London’s Bedford Park Festival ‘Yeats Birthday’ reading next June, & with all prize proceeds going to support the WB Yeats Bedford Park Artwork Project.

Poems on any theme, all via email submission & online payment, full details on our prizes page!

Meantime, Between the Lines is back with a new autumn masterclass, six great new poets to explore collectively via email handouts & discussion, plus you’ll be writing one new poem per week in response, to be workshopped by course-tutor Cahal Dallat & a super group of fellow-masterclass poets with a Zoom get-together at the end (via email & Zoom, click here for details).

Also, from the start of September, for nine weeks, we’re sharing home thoughts (in Home Truth: Architecture & Longing), unearthing home truths, discovering a world we think we know so well (or do we?) in the here & now, in the past, in our dreams of the future, in floor plans & secret spaces. A unique poetic journey to the heart of ‘home’, (by email/Zoom, click here for details).

 

classes & courses

  • sun 8 oct, 2.30-5pm, £24: land of heart’s desire: wb yeats literary walk with cahal dallat for “wb yeats bedford park project”
  • sun 24 sep—sat 25 nov, £280: the avian eye: 9-wk creative-writing workshop series with anne-marie fyfe
  • fri 8 sep—sat 28 oct, £280: between the lines #13, a 7-wk close reading & critical masterclass with cahal dallat
  • sun 3 sep—sat 4 nov, £280: home truth: architecture & longing: 9-wk creative-writing workshop series with anne-marie fyfe
  • sun 23 jul—sat 23 sep, £280: taking a walk: the poetry of footfall: 9-wk creative-writing workshop series with anne-marie fyfe
  • sun 28 may—sat 29 jul, £280: taking a walk: the poetry of footfall: 9-wk creative-writing workshop series with anne-marie fyfe
  • sun 5 mar—sat 6 may, £280: nocturne: a 9-wk creative-writing workshop series with anne-marie fyfe
  • fri 3 mar—sat 29 apr: between the lines #12 – focus on form#2, a 7-wk close reading & critical masterclass with cahal dallat
  • sun 15 jan—sat 18 mar: solitary spaces: 9-wk creative-writing workshop series on solitude, with anne-marie fyfe

See full details of classes and workshops

readings

  • Wed 14 Jun, 7.30 for 8pm, Bedford Park Festival celebrates Yeats’s Birthday: Only My Dreams with special guest Marina Warner …plus London and local poets, hosted by Anne-Marie Fyfe & Cahal Dallat

See full details of poetry readings

(pic: Trapped, Ria Hills)

next event

sun 24 sep—sat 25 nov, £280: the avian eye: 9-wk creative-writing workshop series with anne-marie fyfe

The strange charm of the avian eye: ever been transfixed by that steady gaze, wondered why the ancients believed birds symbolised the soul, why legend insisted on transforming humans into flighted things? Perhaps you recall the simple wonder of a bird’s nest accidentally discovered, of watching flapping wings take off, of tracking bird footprints in wet sand?

Take wing on this intensely focused flight into birdworld mystery & myth, image & imagination – from archaeopteryx to Aristophanes to Anne Carson & Alice Oswald – where we’ll explore, from every altitude & angle, how these feathered ‘familiars’ hover over the psyche, roost in the atavistic self, enchant the auditory airscape with their irrepressible music & much more!

Your Avian Eye thoughts & theories, images, inspirations & tasks will arrive in your inbox weekly, ending with a module on ways to edit your writing. Two weeks later there’s a written appraisal of your submitted excerpt, followed by an end-of-course Zoom reading!

Numbers limited, email coffpoetry@aol.com to apply, & booking link will be forwarded if place available.

Poems: copyright © various named authors. All rights reserved.

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