In this course, mathematician, public art maker and BBC poet Ira Lightman invites you to look at pattern, respond to pattern, happen on pattern, make by pattern. In a groundbreaking essay on ‘organic form’, the poet Denise Levertov talked of the patterns that an apparently ‘free’ poem can arrive at – subtle, secret guiding forms such as those found in nature, in birds’ eyes, boxes of marbles and other surprising places, that are neither regular nor random.

What is it that is so satisfying, so hard to translate, about a poem that ‘comes right with the click of a closing box’ (Yeats). As poets, we are natural readers and writers, but how can we craft the sounds and effects of spoken English into spellbinding patterns and spoken performances? What exactly makes a poet a pattern-maker; those with an instinct for seizing on the geometries of language and form? The people who like to follow a procedure 1-10 and A-Z? Who like to alphabetise and order? To rhyme and make vowel sounds? Whether you are a pattern-head, a poet who’s looking to loosen up their technique or discover new skills – all are welcome.

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