The liar often suffers from amnesia. Amnesia is the silence of the unconscious.

To lie habitually, as a way of life, is to lose contact with the unconscious. It is like taking sleeping pills, which confer sleep but blot out dreaming. The unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else more than truth.

In speaking of lies, we come inevitably to the subject of truth. There is nothing simple or easy about the idea. There is no “the truth”, “a truth” – truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. The pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall patterns, the knots on the underside of the carpet.

This is why the effort to speak honestly is so important. Lies are usually attempts to make everything simpler – for the liar – than it really is, or ought to be.

In lying to others we end up lying to ourselves. We deny the importance of an event, or a person, and thus deprive ourselves of a part of our lives. Or we use one piece of the past or present to screen out another. Thus we lose faith even with our own lives.

The unconscious wants truth, as the body does. The complexity and fecundity of dreams come from the complexity and fecundity of the unconscious struggling to fulfill that desire. The complexity and fecundity of poetry come from the same struggle.

“Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying”, by Adrienne Rich, in On Lies, Secrets and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978, published by Virago in 1980, pp. 187-8.

You can watch other videos from the showcase on the Writers’ Centre’s YouTube stream, including readings by David Harsent, Ross Raisin, Joe Dunthorne and Hannah Lowe.

About the Course

What is form? How does a poem take form? What do we mean by line, stanza, poem? Is free-form an oxymoron? Is form seen or heard? How do poems acknowledge their own formative influences?

This course will not simply focus on established verse-forms like the sonnet. Instead, we will discuss established and organic forms within a wider exploration of the idea of form itself. My goal is for you to deepen your own relationship to form, acquire technical skills and vocabularies, write new poems that display confidence with form, and strengthen your understanding of your own and others’ work.

Taking Form is aimed at poets already committed to their writing who are looking for a challenge.

Course Structure

In the first half of each workshop, we will look critically at canonical and contemporary poems, discuss key ideas and technical elements of form, and undertake writing exercises designed to develop formal awareness. In the second half of each workshop, we will critique one another’s poems in an atmosphere of respect and serious engagement.

Tuesday 1st May
What Is Form?
Competing definitions and personal takes.

Tuesday 8th May
The Line
The primary unit: depth, length, cadence, metre.

Tuesday 15th May
The Sentence
Structuring a thought; tension and variation.

Tuesday 22nd May
The Stanza
Structuring an argument; the echo-chamber.

Tuesday 29th May
The Poem
Structuring total experience; change and integration.

Course Support

To keep up momentum between sessions, participants will gain access to a private blog where they can comment on each other’s works in progress and discuss issues raised. I will be commenting too.

Course Cost and Sign-Up

The full cost of the course is £125, with a reduced cost of £100 for concessions (students, over-60s, unwaged), payable by cheque in advance. To sign up, send me an email through my contact form, briefly explaining your interest in the course and experience of writing poetry, and attach one sample poem.