TS Eliot shortlist workshop

For eight years I ran an annual one-day workshop on the whole TS Eliot shortlist of ten books. It started as a fun idea and in the end it was an annual eye-opener: eye-opening, thought-provoking, serious and sometimes raucous. Meeting on the day before the big TS Eliot Prize reading at the Southbank every year, we turned it into a whole intensive poetry weekend.

Well - we’re back! I have been persuaded to run the workshop again this year — on Zoom! This means you can be part of it even if you can’t get to London. And it means we give that sci-fi villain Omicron and his legions of little creatures the slip, as we’ve created a space they can’t get to. This year’s crop of books are a shortlist like no other I’ve ever seen. It’s going to generate some really interesting and inspiring conversation.

If you’re interested, this workshop is for you. You don’t need to have read any of the books, or even heard of them before — I take care of all that. And whether you’re going to the reading on Sunday or not (that is also going to be online, if you want it to be), having been to the workshop is an incredibly deepening experience. (I have a little parlour game of seeing how many of the shortlisted poets read the poem/s I chose for the workshop, and very often they do!)

Because it’s a Zoom thing not an in-person thing, we’re going to meet over two mornings instead of one whole day: Saturday and Sunday 8th and 9th January, from 10-1.30 (giving us time for a break). Bring your coffee and croissants!

Details on the workshop page as always: just email me and I will add you to the list. I’ll be sending the Zoom link out on Friday.