5-week Online Course: Cross-Pollination – A Poetry Course (Sep 2025)

With Liz Berry

On Mondays 19:00 – 21:00 BST from the 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th September & 6th October 2025, live teaching via Zoom

Join award-winning poet Liz Berry for a playful generative 5-week poetry course about seeking inspiration from the worlds of music, visual art, movement, architecture, mapping and history.

You’ll look, listen, read, write and explore, sewing the seeds for new poems.

This nurturing, experiential course welcomes curious poets of all stages.

Course Highlights/Benefits:

• Enjoy five interactive live Zoom sessions where you’ll receive expert guidance from an established poet and author.
• Join a supportive, nurturing group environment with a chance to connect with poets of different stages and approaches.
• Engage in real-time discussions, Q&A sessions, and personalised feedback.

Testimonials:

“Liz created a warm, safe and inclusive virtual environment and had a welcoming and friendly manner. I loved the poems she shared and the exercises were inspiring and well thought out. Liz gave us space to write and gently encouraged us to approach our work in new ways and maybe take a few creative risks. This has been one of the best virtual courses I have attended both in terms of content and tutor.”

“Best poetry course I have ever done. Liz is a marvel.”

– Attendees of Liz’s “Autumn Enchantments Poetry Course” with Writing West Midlands 2024

Tutor Biography:

Liz Berry is an award-winning poet and author of the critically acclaimed collections Black Country (Chatto, 2014); The Republic of Motherhood (Chatto, 2018); The Dereliction (Hercules Editions, 2021) a collaboration with artist Tom Hicks; and most recently The Home Child (Chatto, 2023), a novel in verse. Liz’s work, described as “a sooty soaring hymn to her native West Midlands” (Guardian), celebrates the landscape, history and dialect of the region. Liz has received the Somerset Maugham Award, Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, The Writers’ Prize and two Forward Prizes. Her poem ‘Homing’, a love poem for the language of the Black Country, is part of the GCSE English syllabus. Liz is a patron of Writing West Midlands.

Course Information:

The course will take place online via Zoom Online Meeting software. It is free to download and you will only need the free version to attend. Please download it and check it is working before the day of the course.

Please try and be somewhere you can concentrate and won’t be interrupted. Headphones can be useful if you have some, to cut out other noise.

Bursary Places:

We understand that not all writers are able to pay for their writing courses to further their career, and we run a Bursary Scheme as a consequence. If you feel you need a bursary, please contact us: info@writingwestmidlands.org.

Please note: you must sign up for the full course even if you cannot attend all dates. No partial course ticket is available.

Short Courses are for over 18s. If you are a young writer, you can sign up for our Spark Young Writers Programme.

Our short courses are collaborative, and you will learn as much from your fellow course attendees as from the tutor. You will be expected to play an active role in group tasks, and you will also have time to reflect on your own writing during sessions.

Course handouts are sometimes (but not always) available, and notes may be available in advance upon request. If you have any additional needs, please contact Writing West Midlands in advance of the course starting and we will try to assist you.