Poetry Day: Exposure

About

What better way to spend a day than at Charleston reading and writing poetry? These day poetry retreats at Charleston are designed to give you the inspiration, tools and guidance necessary to begin your journey into poetry.

The day will be full of creative activities, with coffee and biscuit breaks, plus an hour for lunch where you can explore the gardens or enjoy a meal at Charleston's café.In the morning, we will begin with a few loosening up exercises, designed to silence self-criticism and get the ink flowing. We will then read and discuss a selection of poems to use as inspiration. Through a series of guided exercises, we will begin drafting our own poems.

In the afternoon we will work on our drafts, introducing editing techniques that distil, tighten and clarify. By the end of the day you will leave with pages of notes, writing and editing techniques, a finished poem and new poetry friends! This is just the beginning - everything you learn in this one day can be used again, to prompt new poems in your writing process.

This day retreat will explore poems that address the idea of writing the self, but in an indirect way. Drawing inspiration from the self-portraits on display at Charleston, we'll read and discuss poems by Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, and Ocean Vuong. Together, we'll consider the question: can a poem ever contain too much autobiography?

Summer Poetry Retreat

Winter Poetry Retreat