Poetry Workshops for Young People Starting in September!

Beginning September 10th, I will be running poetry workshops for a period of ten weeks. The lovely team at Graffiti Theatre in Cork have allowed me to use their open, accessible space to run the workshops in every Thursday. I attended Graffiti when I was fifteen and still volunteer there at Write Club, so it’s a very full circle moment to get to teach there myself!

The classes/workshops will be an hour and a half long, in a non-judgemental space where biscuits and tea are not only welcomed, but encouraged. In secondary school when we are taught poetry, we are often only exposed to traditional formats by very successful writers who additionally, have large publishers. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that — but poetry is so much bigger than the templates secondary school students are currently being shown. I also went far too long not knowing about poetry resources in Cork, so I’ll be sharing information regarding them in the workshops.

In my workshops, I’m going to be showing young people that you actually *can* be a poet. Too often, people don’t believe in their worth as poets because they have been shown only one glimpse at what poetry can look like. I’m going to be running through many different formats — from the haiku, to limericks, to prose poetry, open field poetry, lyrics, narrative poetry — all kinds! I will of course be showing examples of incredible poets who may not have garnered as much public attention as others — this means my beloved indie poets. I’ll also be helping workshoppers assemble third person biographies, which are essential when applying to competitions to have your work published. Perhaps even head shots!

I’ll also be helping everyone learn to workshop, as it can be daunting reading your work with the purpose of edits being suggested by your peers. The more you do it, the easier it becomes, and it helps you look at your own work through others’ eyes. It’s an incredible privilege to be able to attend college to pursue a creative career. However, it is absolutely not a necessity. I also think something that we need more of is hearing young people’s voices. With age comes maturity and experience, yes, but what young people have to say has always been and will always be invaluable.

I began writing poetry when I became tired of writing the same journal entries everyday. You may not think poetry is *for you*, but I implore you to question why you think that is. Poetry can be hilariously funny, it can be formatted in really cool ways, and it doesn’t matter what length it is. None of these factors take away from what is considered *good* poetry, either. I want to help young people find their individual poetic voices, ones they become so proud of that they continue to foster them no matter what they decide to become in the future. In a world of AI, we need writers more than ever before.

You can register your place via email, which is linked here. Workshoppers who indentify as disabled or neurodivergent are more than welcome — I am neurodivergent myself, and you deserve a place to express yourself freely. Please let me know if you have any allergies surrounding food (re: biscuits)!

Unfortunately, I cannot run these workshops for free, so in trying to keep costs as low as possible for students, I am asking for €5 per workshop, or an upfront payment of €50. This money will go towards the production of an anthology at the end of the ten weeks. I genuinely believe in the power of seeing your writing printed, it gives you the confidence to say you are, in fact, a poet, and your words are valuable enough to be in a book.

I cannot wait to hear you! See you in September!