This workshop is the sequel to Alex’s very successful six-week course, Things Japanese, and both returnee workshopees and new participants are warmly welcome.

Over the six weeks, the course will probe how Japanese cultural concepts and poetic forms might enhance our work and there will be a special focus on Japanese male poets, ranging from early zuihitsu writers to twentieth century poets, such as Yoshida Kenko, Kamo no Chomei and Taro Naka and Minoru Yoshika. The workshop will also include insights on Japanese contemporary poetry from Paul Rossiter, editor of Isobar Press, (shared at The Tears in the Fence festival) which Alex will report back on to the workshop group.

We will explore a range of Japanese forms, from senryu to zuihitsu to renga, and there will be a chance to submit work to a group anthology, at the end of the course. Each workshop includes a supporting workshop booklet sent out in advance of the class and Alex exploits Zoom to share a variety of materials including art and bespoke recordings from poets she has collaborated with, such as Tamiko Dooley. The course will also look at work by non-Japanese poets inspired by Japan, such as Tobias Hill and Anthony Thwaite, and at Asian American writers exploiting Japanese forms, such as Eugenia Leigh and Kimiko Hahn.

About your tutor with The Writing School, Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana:
Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana's first collection, Sing me down from the dark, was published by SALT, in 2022, and is in its 3rd issue.It has been widely reviewed and is recommended by The Poetry Society. She is also published in numerous anthologies and magazines, such as The North, P.N. Review, Poetry Wales, The Moth and The Alchemy Spoon and she edited issue 11 of The Alchemy Spoon. Her zuihitsu poems have been highly commended in The Winchester Poetry Prize and longlisted in the National Poetry competition, and new zuihitsu and haibun poems, which will form part of her manuscript for her second collection, will appear in the next issue of The North.

She has been a teacher for 27 years and lives in Newcastle-upon-Tyne with her teenage son, Ryoma. She has performed at many venues around the UK, as well as at The America Writers' conference in Portland, Oregon. She is now is planning to promote her book and do research for her second collection, in Japan, later this year. She holds Masters' degrees in Japanese, and in Writing Poetry, and has been placed and shortlisted for several poetry prizes including The Troubadour, The Fish Prize, Oxford Brookes International Poetry Prize, and Leeds Poetry Festival Award.

Dates: Starts Wednesday 4th September and ends Wednesday 9th October 2024, 7pm - 9pm
Location: Online
Cost: £152.38

Book via Eventbrite.

Queries? Contact Jeanette Burton jeanetteburton282@yahoo.co.uk