We’ll look at writing our troublesome (and troubled) relationship with the more-than-human world. Sure, we all wept at Sphen The Penguin’s lost love – but there’s more to doing queer ecopoetics than simply spotting the abundant queerness of the nonhuman world – ‘queering’ is a verb, rather than just subject or theme.

While this course will primarily be for LGBTQ+ poets, allies are very welcome. If you don’t identify as queer, this will be a unique opportunity to ask how can your poems become so? If you are queer – write about whatever you like and let their queerness shimmer through.

Caleb Parkin, Bristol City Poet 2020–22, has poems in The Guardian, The Rialto, The Poetry Review, and was guest poet on BBC Radio 4’s Poetry Please. His debut collection This Fruiting Body (Nine Arches, 2021) was longlisted for the Laurel Prize. He’s published three pamphlets: Wasted Rainbow (tall-lighthouse, 2021); The Coin (Broken Sleep, 2022); and collected City Poet commissions, All the Cancelled Parties (2022). His second collection, Mingle, is published October 2024 (Nine Arches). Caleb has featured at literary festivals including Poetry in Aldeburgh, Lyra Fest, and Push the Boat Out. He tutors for Arvon, Poetry Society, and Poetry School and holds an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes from Metanoia Institute. He is currently a practice-based PhD researcher at University of Exeter with RENEW Biodiversity, exploring human/nonhuman communication and animal voices in poetry, through the lens of queer ecologies and ‘biodiversity’s ghosts’.

Dates: 15 January - 9 April 2025
Location: Online
Cost: £210

Further info and to book here