welcome

from Coffee-House Poetry organiser, Anne-Marie Fyfe

Many thanks – & I’m passing on thanks from Jane Hirshfield – to all who joined us from so many different timezones for Jane’s stunning #poetrymonday reading & in-conversation from her cool bright California noonday, in contrast to our cold wet London night (see readings, Mon 18 Nov).

An outstanding evening, & thanks too, to all who’ve emailed to say how privileged they felt to have been part of such a profound & mesmerising poetry happening, not just for Jane’s beautiful & wide-ranging poems from her ‘new & selected’ The Asking (Bloodaxe) conveyed so engagingly, serenely, but for her generosity (the conversation carried on way past the hour & none of us noticed) & her wisdom, intelligence & thoughtfulness, on everything from who Chinese poets are reading now, to why the smallest of living things play such a part in her poems, to the appeal of the small poem (her pebbles, & assays); from why science matters more than ever to poets, to what she’s learned (from Central European poets who’ve lived through desperate times) of how not to despair of the falling world…

… & about the significance of silence in her world, & in her poems, the aural & visual white space at the edges & between the lines, where meaning resides or hides. Plus, as always, in our talking transatlantic series, her personal gems of craft advice to our audience of poets.

Thanks to Jane for a wonderful poetry experience (yet again – her second visit in this series) & to resident #poetrymondays interviewer Cahal Dallat for exploring in depth, in conversation, so many of Jane’s themes, interests & concerns. Of course, as some of you will know, Jane is one of the ‘favourite poets’ Cahal has featured in his #betweenthelines masterclasses.

All our international online events continue to be offered free! And apologies to all those who didn’t get a place: our limit’s 100 and we had 281 booking requests, a measure of Jane’s popularity, though Mark Doty, who’s our next talking transatlantic guest in the new year, will inevitably be oversubscribed, so do look out for future emails.

Next-up’s our 2024 prize night: judges Jane Yeh & Glyn Maxwell still deep in the reading process & we’ll be letting winners know from Mon 2 Dec with, a week later, the public announcement, & readings by winners, commendeds & the judges themselves, at our international prize-results Zoom on Mon 9 Dec, 8pm (see right), free, online, unmissable!

classes & courses

booking now

  • sun 12 jan—sat 15 mar, £280: home truth: architecture & longing: 7-wk creative-writing workshop series with anne-marie fyfe
  • 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

recent
  • sun 8 sep—sat 2 nov: beyond the blue: 7-wk creative-writing workshop series with anne-marie fyfe
  • 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

next event

mon 9 dec, 8pm: troubadour international poetry prize night: judges jane yeh & glyn maxwell (free online event) with 2024 prizewinners!

With winners notified in week commencing mon 2 dec & all results embargoed until tonight, this is the first chance to join us online to celebrate the very best poems submitted to Troubadour International Poetry Prize 2024, hear the poems read by the winning & commended poets, discover why our 2024 judges made their choices, & listen to both reading from their own work!

  • Jane Yeh was born in New Jersey, educated at Harvard & University of Iowa, now lives in London, & has degrees from Manchester Metropolitan, & London’s Royal Holloway Universities. She lectures in Creative Writing at the Open University, writes on books, theatre, & fashion for, among others, Poetry Review & Village Voice, & has published (with Sally O’Reilly) Creative Writing: A Workbook with Readings (Routledge, 2022). Her first collection, Marabou, was shortlisted for Whitbread, Forward, & Aldeburgh prizes, she was named as a Poetry Book Society Next Generation Poet for The Ninjas & her latest, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation & one of the Guardian’s best books of 2019, is The Discipline (Carcanet).
  • Glyn Maxwell, poet, playwright, novelist, librettist & critic, born in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, has studied at Oxford & Boston, & taught in Amherst, New York & London. His poetry collections include The Nerve, which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, & The Breakage, Hide Now, Pluto, & his latest, How the Hell Are You (Picador, 2020), all of which were shortlisted for either Forward or TS Eliot prizes. His plays have been staged in London & New York, & his opera libretti at Glyndebourne, Royal Opera House, & on tour. He has edited Derek Walcott’s collected poems, & published (with Oberon) On Poetry, a guidebook for the general reader, & Drinks with Dead Poets, a uniquely inventive novel encounter with poetry’s greats.

Free online event, numbers limited, advance booking only, email info@coffeehousepoetry.org & Zoom link will be forwarded

#poetrymondays

  • mon 9 dec, 8pm: 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

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