Next Steps in Poetry with Liz McSkeane

Course Summary

This interactive, twelve-hour programme, delivered over six two-hour sessions is aimed at writers who have had some experience of writing poetry and would like to deepen their skills. We will revisit and expand on the key element of poetry, though reading selected poems, guided discussion and writing activities. Participants will be invited to engaging in short, in-session writing activities and to practise the topics covered in weekly optional writing assignments. Those who wish to, will be encouraged to workshop their writing, in either small or large group. This involves giving and receiving feedback in a supportive setting.

Course Outline

Week 1: Expand Approach to Voice and Tone
Play with language and pacing to create voice and tone.
Use imagery and metaphor to create atmosphere, meaning and mood.
Expressing the experience of the senses to enrich poetic voice and tone.

Week 2: Play With Poetic Forms
Debate the pros and cons of writing in poetic forms, the freedom and constraints.
Revisit familiar poetic forms and explore a selection that are new to you.
Try out newly-invented poetic forms.

Week 3: Diving into Sound
Revisit familiar elements of sound in poetry: alliteration, assonance, rhyme.
Deepen ways of using rhyme, eg with half-rhyme, internal rhyme etc.
Play with different effect of rhythm and line breaks.

Week 4: Focus on Free Verse
Debate what makes a free verse poem, a poem.
Delve into the uses of line breaks, rhythm and imagery in free verse.
Discover non-traditional approaches to rhythm and rhyme in free verse.
Experiment with non-traditional approaches to grammar, punctuation and space.

Week 5: Focus on Image and Metaphor
Reflect on how image and metaphor can add layers of meaning to your poem.
Practise creating original, surprising images.
Use image and metaphor to create progression in a poem

Week 6: Playing with Ekphrastic Poetry
Describe favourite or well-known works of art in poetic form.
Explore how meaning and sub-text can be woven into your experience of visual art.

Course Outcomes

At the end of this six-week course, participants will have achieved the following outcomes:

1. Revisit familiar, traditional elements of poetry, including rhythm, rhyme, metaphor, image, line break etc.
2. Explore uses of imagery and metaphor to add layers and sub-text to descriptive poems.
3. Practise expressing sensory experience to convey emotions, ideas or psychological states.
4. Explore non-traditional approaches to the key elements of poetry, including grammar, punctuation, use of space and imagery.
5. Take part in discussions on selected poems, and on their own and others’ work.
6. Begin to clarify their own voice and poetic preferences for their own work.

Liz McSkeane is a writer and publisher. She has one collection of short stories, four collections of poetry and has just completed her second novel. In 1999 she was overall winner of the Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year Award for her poetry. Her first novel Canticle was joint winner in the 2016 Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair. Her second novel, Aftershock, will be published in October, 2025. Liz is founder and Director of Turas Press.

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