welcome

from Coffee-House Poetry organiser, Anne-Marie Fyfe

Mon 18 Nov (8 pm), Jane Hirshfield kicks off our next Talking Transatlantic series of free, online #poetrymonday US-poet readings/conversations (with poet & critic Cahal Dallat). A welcome return visit following her tour of China & publication of The Asking: New & Selected Poems by Bloodaxe (UK) & Knopf (US). Always a fascinating & engaging guest, Jane, like all our #poetrymonday interviewees, will be asked to reveal one specific secret in her poetry practice!

Events are still free & online but booking’s essential (limit 100), see #poetrymondays

And continuing with the series that’s already brought us, among others, Joshua Bennett, Naomi Shihab Nye, Tom Sleigh, Dana Gioia, Jane Hirshfield & Mark Halliday, in early 2025 we’ll be talking transatlantically with Mark Doty, Professor Emeritus at Rutgers, who, since his 2020 online Troubadour International Poetry Prize reading, has moved out of NYC & owns a 13-acre Hudson River Valley farm, where he’s absorbed by bee-keeping, nesting boxes, heirloom tomatoes, & poems, naturally.

And then the superb Dennis Nurkse, whose poetry so many of you have engaged with. All three guests have featured recently in Cahal Dallat’s Between The Lines masterclass series.

American Jane Yeh & London-based Glyn Maxwell read, of course, in a special 9th December #poetrymonday to announce, & celebrate, the poems they will have selected in their role as 2024 Troubadour International Poetry Prize judges. Winners & commendeds get to read alongside the judges, so do check out closing date etc below if you’d like to be one of those winners!

And in other news: a second run of ‘blue’-themed creative-writing course, Beyond the Blue & a repeat of Taking a Walk, both seven weeks starting Sun 20 Oct. And with the current Between the Lines creative & critical masterclass coming to an end, there’s another run of that course starting Fri 25 Oct, all on our classes page.

An exciting, intensive, immersive #coffeehousepoetry autumn! Looking forward to catching up with so many of you!

#poetrymondays

  • mon 18 nov 8pm: talking transatlantic with jane hirshfield: reading & in-conversation, with cahal dallat (free online event)
  • mon 9 dec, 7.30 pm: troubadour international poetry prize night: judges jane yeh & glyn maxwell (free online event) with 2024 prizewinners!
  • talking transatlantic with mark doty & dennis nurkse: two more free online reading & in-conversation events in early 2025

See full details of poetry readings

classes & courses

booking now

  • fri 10 jan—sat 1 mar, £280: between the lines, a 7-wk masterclass with cahal dallat

current
  • sun 20 oct—sat 14 dec: taking a walk: the poetry of footfall: 7-wk creative-writing workshop series with anne-marie fyfe
  • sun 20 oct—sat 14 dec: beyond the blue: 7-wk creative-writing workshop series with anne-marie fyfe
  • fri 25 oct—sat 14 dec: between the lines, a 7-wk masterclass with cahal dallat
  • sun 22 sep—sat 23 nov: root & branch: the enchantment of trees: 7-wk creative-writing workshop series with anne-marie fyfe
  • sun 8 sep—sat 2 nov: beyond the blue: 7-wk creative-writing workshop series with anne-marie fyfe

recent
  • fri 6 sep—sat 26 oct: between the lines, a 7-wk masterclass with cahal dallat
  • sun 8 sep, 2.30-5pm: poetry in the pavements: explore the young wb yeats’s west-london world with cahal dallat
  • sun 23 jun—sat 24 aug: solitary spaces: 9-wk creative-writing workshop series on solitude, with anne-marie fyfe
  • sun 16 jun, 2.30-5pm: land of heart’s desire: wb yeats literary walk with cahal dallat
  • sun 26 may—sat 27 jul: nocturne, a 9-wk creative-writing workshop series with anne-marie fyfe
  • fri 24 may—sat 13 jul: between the lines – focus on form, a 7-wk masterclass with cahal dallat
  • sun 21 apr—sat 29 jun: root & branch: the enchantment of trees: 9-wk creative-writing workshop series anne-marie fyfe
  • sun 7 apr—sat 15 jun: the avian eye: 9-wk creative-writing workshop series with anne-marie fyfe

See full details of classes and workshops

photo: curt richter

next event

mon 18 nov 8pm: talking transatlantic with jane hirshfield: reading & in-conversation (free online event)

New-York-born poet, essayist, and translator Jane Hirshfield makes a welcome & much requested, much anticipated return to our #poetrymonday talking transatlantic reading/interview series (with poet & critic Cahal Dallat), following her recent tour of China & the publication of her eleventh book of poetry, The Asking: New & Selected Poems, earlier this year by both Bloodaxe in the UK & Knopf in the US.

Recognised by The New York Times Magazine as ‘one of the most important writers in the world today’, Hirshfield has been praised by Nobel-Prize-winner Czesław Miłosz for her ‘profound empathy for the suffering of all living beings’, & celebrated by former US Poet Laureate Kay Ryan as an ‘eloquent and exacting’ poet. Her poems, according to Judith Kitchen ‘negotiate the difficulty of living while, at the same time, paying homage to what life has to offer’.

Hirshfield has long explored the poetry/science relationship (including as artist-in-residence at a Univ. California neuroscience program), is one of American poetry’s leading ecological thinkers, founded an online and travelling exhibit exploring the poetry/science interface/intersection, & in July 2024 became the first American & the first woman to receive the Zhongkun International Poetry Prize at Peking University.

Always an engaging conversationalist on the subject of poetry & the writer’s life (& author of two collections of essays on the world of poetry), Jane, like all our #poetrymonday interviewees, will be asked will be asked to reveal one specific secret in her poetry practice!

Major poetry event, free & online but limited to 100 so advance booking only: email info@coffeehousepoetry.org & Zoom link will be forwarded

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