Duration
Weekly two-hour sessions over six weeks
Location
Online via Zoom
Date and time
7.00–9.00 p.m. weekly on Tuesday evenings, 27 October to 1 December
Level
For those with some experience of writing poetry
Course Summary
Over this course participants will explore the process of writing a long poem. As poets, we respond to the climate emergency in many ways through our writing. For those familiar with writing poetry the long poem can be a rewarding next step, allowing our poetic responses to breathe, move, expand and change. In this series of workshops participants will explore how to start writing with a long poem in mind. They will consider how to move the process forward, and the challenges the long poem might present, discussing how to plan for and meet those challenges. Possible avenues for publication of a long poem will also be shared and discussed.
Course Outline
The Long Poem will include an introduction to each session from Annette, drawing on the process of writing her poem Holdfast, published as a chapbook by Channel in 2024. Participants will respond through writing exercises or verbally to a short poem, poem extract or other text in each session. Elements such as using our in body and whole body responses to our ecosystem, managing research, structure and form, planning and revision will be considered. In addition, each participant may bring one poem, or extract from a long poem, of not more than a page to be briefly peer reviewed during one of the sessions.
Week 1: Where Do I Start?
Where do we get poems? Is it a response to our environment experienced through our senses, something we have read, something someone has told us, or is it through a dream? Has a threat to our ecosystem spurred us to action? Participants will discuss how one of their poems started or what aspect of our environment is calling us to put pen to paper. How can we change our way of perceiving the world, as poetry often demands?
Week 2: The Long Poem
How can a long poem give space for poetry to breathe? What are the challenges? Planning and revising a long poem will be discussed. A text giving an example of planning a long poem will be provided and responded to.
Week 3: ‘Before I have the names / I make metaphors on the shoreline’ – Holdfast
Experiencing natural phenomena can provide deep insights. However, sometimes research can be necessary. How might that research sit within a long poem? What steps and choices might we need to take with regard to research?
Week 4: Form
How can form and changes in form support the movement or theme of a long poem? Examples from a long poem will be provided and discussed in small groups.
Week 5: How Can a Long Poem Encompass Our Responses to the Climate Crisis?
What kind of thoughts and emotions run through us when we think of climate change? Holdfast draws on the words of Ellen Hutchins, taken from her letters, and allows them to speak for themselves, but also indicates present day threats to our local ecosystem in various ways, such as an epilogue inviting readers to take an imaginative dive into the kelp forest off our shores. What else can we draw on in a long poem to give voice to these emotions? How can myth, dreams or imagining help us say the unsayable?
Week 6: Sharing a Long Poem
What are the advantages and challenges of long poems in the context of publication? Why might the chapbook format be suitable for a long poem? Other possibilities for publication will also be discussed by the group. How can you share your long poem at poetry venues and open mics where time might be limited? What are the challenges and positives of reading extracts from your poem? There will also be a chance for participants to revisit an aspect of the course or recap on course content in this session.
Course Outcomes
By the end of the course participants will be able to approach the writing of a long poem with more confidence, gaining insight into where to start, as well as exploring what elements and considerations might be included in the process.
About the Facilitator
Annette Skade is the author of two poetry books. Her debut collection Thimblerig (2013) was published by Bradshaw Books, on her being awarded first place in The Cork Literary Review Poetry Manuscript Competition. Her ecopoetry chapbook Holdfast was published by Channel in 2024. She has an MA in Poetry Studies from DCU (2012) and a PhD on the poetry of Anne Carson (2021). She was Irish Writers Centre and Florence Writers Poet in Residence in Florence in 2017 and a guest poet at the Irish Writers Centre Climate Writing Sessions in 2025. Her poems appear in journals and anthologies in Ireland, the UK, the US and Australia. She has lived on the Beara Peninsula on Ireland’s south-west coast for many years.
