Just a few days left to register for 'Appreciation of Poetry' course

Knowing how poems are made is a help in knowing how to read them: the ideal experience of reading a poem is, in many respects, close to the experience of writing it: one goes through uncertainty, flashes of perception, small satisfactions, puzzlement, understanding, surprise. A reader who knows how poetry is made has a better chance of responding to what is there. - Kenneth Koch

I'm really looking forward to getting my 'Appreciation of Poetry' course started in just over a fortnight, on Wednesday, 5 October. Themes will include: ways of understanding and reading a poem; how poetry is made; the sonnet; the villanelle and forms of rhyme; poetry in free verse; language and vision in ekphrasis; the haiku; image, nature and description; common things: poetry of the antipoetic and spoken word. We'll explore the work of the poets below as well as RS Thomas, Wendy Cope, Patrick Kavanagh, Lucille Clifton, Sylvia Plath & Bronwyn Lea. Only a few days left to register (before 28 September)! Contact Berna Morgan, Adult Education, NUI Galway, Nuns Island, berna.morgan@nuigalway.ie, 091-494055 for further information and see page 10 of the Short Courses booklet: http://www.nuigalway.ie/…/fil…/Short-Courses-Series-2016.pdf See also my last post with full details.

Appreciation of Poetry: New short evening course at NUI Galway

I’m delighted to announce details of the short evening course I will be teaching for Adult Education, NUI Galway in the Autumn. ‘Appreciation of Poetry’ will be an eight week course exploring how great modernist and contemporary poetry mediates the world. In a fun, informal environment, we will read from the Imagists at the start of the twentieth century right up to contemporary poetry by way of an exploration of language, voice, genre, form, theme and metaphor. Some of the Irish and international writers we will look at include: Louis MacNiece, William Carlos Williams, Pablo Neruda, Frank O’Hara, Elizabeth Bishop, Lucille Clifton, Paula Meehan and Sharon Olds. As a widely published, and practising poet, this subject is truly close to my heart and it promises to be an exciting voyage through some great poetry of the 20th and 21st centuries. What better way to spend the dark nights between October and December! All you need to bring with you is a curiosity about poetry and an interest in the pleasures and possibilities of language - no prior knowledge is assumed and I will tailor the course to the particular needs of the group. Details of the course are below. Please spread the word to anyone whom you think may be interested. Thanks

You can register by post by completing the application form at the end of the brochure and returning it together with payment to: 

Ms. Berna Morgan
Short Courses Series 2016 Centre for Adult Learning & Professional Development NUI Galway

You can read more in the NUI Galway Adult Education Short Course brochure. 

What critics have said about my recent collection of poetry, In Between Angels and Animals (Arlen House, 2013):

Her poetic style is lyrical, intelligent and confident and the poems are searching in a sophisticated and detached way....She goes on to explore many subjects: love, exile, technology, all in a worldwide context…The poetry is erudite and far-reaching and, as the title suggests, it touches on the whole created universe, as the Elziabethans understood it! – Poetry Ireland Review, Issue 115, April 2015

She uses her words wisely and sparingly, with none wasted as emotions, images and thoughts are conjured up. - Books Ireland, March/April 2014

I recommend this collection wholeheartedly to all those interested in Irish writing in Irish and in English. - The Australasian Journal of Irish Studies, Vol. 13, 2013