Jonathan Edwards’s first collection of poems, My Family and Other Superheroes (Seren, 2014), received the Costa Poetry Award and the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award. It was shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. His second collection, Gen (Seren, 2018), also received the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award, and his poem about Newport Bridge was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2019. He received the Troubadour Prize in 2022. Jonathan has been poet-in-residence at Gladstone’s Library and at the Dylan Thomas Boathouse, Laugharne, a judge for the National Poetry Competition, the Wales Book of the Year and the Foyle Young Poets Award, and a Literature Wales Mentor of emerging writers. He has taught poetry courses and workshops for a wide range of organisations, including the Arvon Foundation, Tŷ Newydd, The Garsdale Retreat, The Poetry School, The Poetry Society and The Poetry Business. He lives in Crosskeys, South Wales, and is an Advisory Fellow for the Royal Literary Fund.
‘World is crazier and more of it than we think’ writes Louis MacNeice in his poem ‘Snow’ and, on this writing week, we’ll open our arms to all the amazing and unpredictable things the world does, and how this can take our poetry in a rich range of directions.

We’ll explore variety in subjects, thinking about the life of animals and the natural world, how the energy of bounding and leaping lions or even just a bird, fluttering past the window, can be held in the language of a poem and allow it to soar. We’ll think about people, family members and strangers, writing poems of love and hate and exploration, trying to frame words to honour those we love or who drive us crazy. We’ll explore the surreal, the way writing a poem can be a royal road to the liberties and joys of the imagination, a way to realise a vision or discover something we didn’t know we could think. And we’ll write poems which start with places that are important to us – our favourite towns or villages or natural spaces – and open out from there to take in politics and work, memories and history.

To pursue this broad range of subjects, we’ll also look at a range of strategies in form and voice, from the traditional to the innovative, and draw for inspiration on the work of a rich range of brilliant writers, including Chen Chen, Kathryn Bevis, Joanna Ingham and Nick Laird. If you would like to give your writing a shot in the arm of new energy and ideas, in the friendly and supportive atmosphere that these retreats have become known for, and come away from the week with a rich range of new drafts and ideas to sustain your work, this is the course for you.