Want to give your poetry a boost with new ideas, new skills, and new challenges?  Here's how: watch the videos of our series of masterclasses from professional poets at the top of their game.

Write Out Loud's masterclasses were a roaring success, having fully sold out and generated wonderful feedback. OK, that was in 2021. Now, they are back and available to anyone who wants to take their writing career to the next step, and perhaps boost their chances in poetry competitions, including perhaps Write Out Loud's 20th anniversary competition before the deadline of 11th April. 

NB this is a video of the orginal Zoom masterclass, so you are unable to participate (and don't need to mute your mic) but you can follow the whole masterclass.

The hugely popular masterclass sessions were originally produced for Write Out Loud by the inspirational Matt Abbott, a successful poet in his own right, and a poetry producer, organiser and much-in-demand teacher. 

The three sessions feature top poets Anthony Anaxogorou, British-born, multi-award-winning Cypriot poet, fiction writer, essayist, publisher, and poetry educator; Caroline Bird whose poetry has won endless awards and appeared in countless journals, has run workshops for numerous organisations and is a regular tutor for the Arvon Foundation; and the indefatigable Matt Abbott himself, whose work in inspiring and teaching poetry at all age levels puts even his magnificent achievements in writing and performing poetry in the shade.

Masterclasses indeed, and these invaluable workshops will be made available from today and every Monday for the next four weeks on Write Out Loud's Youtube Channel, as videos of the original Zoom sessions.

There are no fees, but we ask users of the videos to please make a donation if you can afford it, using the link provided. And please give us feedback by commenting below the videos.

Poetry Masterclass 1 (with Anthony Anaxagorou) - Available now!

In this first masterclass video you will certainly find Anthony Anaxagorou's ideas challenging your previous views of whether the work is ready to send off, or read aloud. Challenging, too, your initial thoughts about that draft. Should it really have a neat ending? Should you chop your poem's legs off? Do you really need that adjective? Is it too symmetrical? 

Does this workshop leader really know what he's talking about?

Absolutely, he does. Anthony is a British-born, multi-award-winning Cypriot poet, fiction writer, essayist, publisher, and poetry educator. He's published in countless journals and appeared on BBC Newsnight, BBC Radio 4, ITV, Vice UK, Channel 4 and Sky Arts.

His collection After the Formalities is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, shortlisted for the 2019 TS Eliot prize and was a Telegraph and Guardian poetry book of the year.

In 2020 he published How To Write It, a practical guide to the craft of poetry and fiction. He is a University of Roehampton honorary fellow, artistic director of Southbank Centre's monthly poetry and music night, Out-Spoken, and publisher of Out-Spoken Press.

Watch this masterclass video and he will challenge you to challenge your poems (and PLEASE DONATE if you can afford to):

Like, comment, discuss, share and donate if you can. Don’t forget to submit your poem to our poetry competition before 11th April! 

Check back at www.writeoutloud.net next Monday for the second video in our masterclass series.