Level up your poetic craft in this workshop series with JLM Morton
monthly small group mentoring poetry workshop
Image credit: Kanhaiya Sharma
Elevate your poetic craft in this dynamic mentoring workshop tailored for those already writing and eager to take their poetry to new heights. Each session dives into the essential building blocks of poetic practice, from reading to refining your voice, helping you build confidence and broaden your poetic range.
Our goal is to foster a supportive community of writers, offering a safe space where constructive feedback and genuine camaraderie fuel your growth. Here, we celebrate each other’s successes and turn moments of failure into opportunities to comeback better.
In each session, you will:
- engage in close readings of fresh, contemporary British, Irish and American poetry
- delve into poetic structures like lineation, meter, stanza, conventional and innovative forms
- get a prompt inspired by close readings
- workshop your own poems with peers and receive valuable insights to strengthen your work
- participate in open discussions, Q&As, and tackle any challenges that arise in your writing journey between sessions
With a small, intimate group (maximum 6 participants), everyone gets time to share and contribute. We provide recommended reading and expect everyone to engage with the selected texts for in-depth discussions each month.
This critique group is a great option if you want to polish your work to publication standard and/or prepare a poetry pamphlet or collection for submission to a publisher.
“Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good.
It’s the thing you do that makes you good.”
Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers (2008)
Expect to explore works by poets like Charlotte Shevchenko Knight, Gboyega Odubanjo, Harry Josephine Giles, John Burnside, Chen Chen, Jericho Brown, Nick Laird, Diane Seuss, Jack Underwood, Clare Pollard, Helen Mort, Fady Joudah, and others.
To keep the inspiration flowing between workshops, an online platform, like a WhatsApp group, will be available for sharing links, insights, and opportunities. Join us and transform your poetry with the support of a vibrant, creative community!
This workshop will take place online to facilitate access for a diverse cohort.
Fee
£120 for 4 x 3 hour workshops (per term) if paid in full. £100 concessions.
£32 per workshop if paid in four instalments (pay the first instalment now to secure your spot).
Booking is below.
Dates and timing
Tuesday evenings 6pm - 9pm
9th September 2025
7th October 2025
4th November 2025
2nd December 2025
Your tutor: JLM Morton
Highly commended by the Forward Prizes, winner of the Laurie Lee, Geoffrey Dearmer and Poetry Archive Worldview prizes, JLM Morton’s work has been published in Poetry Review, Rialto, The London Magazine, Poetry Birmingham, Magma and elsewhere. Lake 32 was her debut pamphlet about a year in the life of a lake (Yew Tree Press, 2020). Her first collection, Red Handed, out now with Broken Sleep (2024), is a Poetry Society Book of the Year. Her second collection is forthcoming in 2026.
Juliette has more than 20 years’ experience facilitating workshops with adult learners and is the Co-Director of Dialect.