Tutors / Ailbhe Darcy & Susan Richardson

What is poetry’s role in a crisis? How might the shape, tone or approach of a poem evolve in response to climate change? How might poetry help us to persist, survive or resist? And how might it bring comfort or inspire action? Both beginner and more advanced writers are welcome to join us to grapple with these questions.

Together, we’ll read work that directly or indirectly addresses climate change and focus on the strategies contemporary poets have used to help us to see this unwieldy, urgent, often overwhelming subject with new eyes. We’ll seek inspiration in the landscape around us, too, exploring ways to more fully engage with the shifts and flux of our natural environment. You’ll be able to try out fresh approaches, experimenting with form, sound and language and will also have the opportunity to consider how climate crisis-themed poetry can move, and have impact, beyond the page. Responding creatively and wholeheartedly to this most critical of subjects, we’ll come away re-energised and hopeful, with new poems and new ideas.