Close Reading Poetry with Jessica Traynor

Course Summary

Are you interested in exploring the world of contemporary poetry, and finding inspiration in the freshest new poems? Join Jessica Traynor for a workshop based course where each week we will respond to a prompt based on a poem published within the last year.

We will also workshop existing poems from the group each week on a roster basis, with three poets receiving feedback each week. This course is perfect for poets who are seeking some insights on existing work, while continuing to develop new work in tandem.

Course Outline

Each week we will spend time reading and discussing one recently published poem and writing in response to it. We will then workshop existing poems by participants on a roster basis.

Course Outcomes

Poets will come away with an expanded sense of the contemporary poem in all its voices and guises, and a body of new and edited work.

Jessica Traynor is poetry editor at Banshee and the author of four poetry collections. Her third collection, Pit Lullabies (Bloodaxe, 2022), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, an Irish Times book of the year, and a Guardian Best Summer Read of 2022. It was shortlisted for the Yeats Society Sligo/ Irish Independent Poetry Prize. New Arcana (Bloodaxe, 2025) was an RTÉ and Irish Independent Book of the Year and was shortlisted for the Pigott Prize. She is a 2025 EU Press Prize Laureate, was 2024 recipient of the Tundish Award from Field Day for contributions to the arts in Ireland, and the 2023 recipient of the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Irish Poetry.

Booked out? To be added to the waiting list for this course, please email bookings@irishwriterscentre.ie.