welcome

from Coffee-House Poetry organiser, Anne-Marie Fyfe

Delighted to announce a brand new course.

I’ve had a fascinating time over many months developing this tree-themed workshop: reading widely, researching, & lots of woody, leafy field-work too. All about getting in touch with the deep psychological & mythical resonances of trees, & their place in our lives, memories, imaginations, & poetry. Lots more under ‘next event’ (see right), and on our courses & classes page.

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 subject, all via email submission & online payment, by Sun 10th Dec, full details on our prizes page!

 

classes & courses

  • 2024
  • fri 5 jan—sat 24 feb, £280: between the lines #15 – focus on form#1, a 7-wk close reading & critical masterclass with cahal dallat
  • sun 7 jan—sat 9 mar, £280: root & branch: the enchantment of trees: 9-wk creative-writing workshop series anne-marie fyfe
  • current
  • sun 15 oct—sat 16 dec, £280: solitary spaces: 9-wk creative-writing workshop series on solitude, with anne-marie fyfe
  • fri 27 oct—sat 16 dec, £280: between the lines #14, a 7-wk close reading & critical masterclass with cahal dallat
  • sun 24 sep—sat 25 nov, £280: the avian eye: 9-wk creative-writing workshop series with anne-marie fyfe
  • sun 3 sep—sat 4 nov, £280: home truth: architecture & longing: 9-wk creative-writing workshop series with anne-marie fyfe
  • recent
  • sun 8 oct, 2.30-5pm: land of heart’s desire: wb yeats literary walk with cahal dallat for wb yeats bedford park project
  • fri 8 sep—sat 28 oct: between the lines #13, a 7-wk close reading & critical masterclass with cahal dallat* sun 23 jul—sat 23 sep: taking a walk: the poetry of footfall: 9-wk creative-writing workshop series 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

image: igor morski

next event

sun 7 jan—sat 9 mar, £280: root & branch: the enchantment of trees: 9-wk creative-writing workshop series anne-marie fyfe

The trees witness everything: Victoria Chang

From newly planted saplings to a lone headland cypress, 3000-year-old sequoias or the Amazon rainforest, arboreal symbols are deep-rooted in the psyche – archetypes of life, strength, growth, wisdom. Collectively, in bower, greenwood, spinney or the sacred grove, they offer us sylvan dens of sanctuary & secrecy, escape from the madding crowd, become their own numinous world of myth, mystery, metamorphosis… & poetic invention.

Join us as we explore trees in their iconic, psychological & sensory implications, their ubiquity & absence, their seasons of starkness & leafy abundance, their Gothic majesty & suburban primness, their likeliest & unlikeliest of locations in landscape, imagination, personal experience, literature & the wider culture.

Your Root & Branch modules of tree-life thoughts & theories, facts & fictions, visual images, poetry & prose inspirations, & directed tasks, will arrive in your inbox weekly for seven weeks, ending with advice on editing your work. Two weeks later there’s a written appraisal of your submitted excerpt, followed by an end-of-course Zoom gathering!

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

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

Other content: copyright © Coffee–House Poetry 2008–2023. All rights reserved.

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