AMULET

Poems from the Tower Poetry Summer School 2005

Hamid Khanbhai – Alice Wood – Anna Cope – Lizzy Dening – Francesca Beasley – Miranda Cichy – Meirion Jordan – Ruqaya Izzidien – Anna Lewis – Kirsten Mackintosh – Rebecka Mustajarvi

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The annual Tower Poetry Summer School gives young writers the time and space to discuss their shared enthusiasm for the reading and writing of poetry. Some of the students who attend the course may be an early stage in their own writing, while others may have already published their work and be much more familiar with the process of drafting and revising their poems. At whatever stage the participants may be, they are given advice and encouragement by experienced tutors, and, perhaps above all, they are given the confidence to take what they have learnt during the course and explore its possibilities and challenges as they develop their own poetry skills in years to come.

In the summer of 2005, Gillian Clarke and Polly Clark spent time at Christ Church, Oxford, with a group of young writers who were given the opportunity to write and talk about their poems in the context of workshops, tutorials, and more informal discussions.  The tutors talked about their own ways of approaching poetry, and were also joined in readings by poets Esther Morgan and Jamie McKendrick. Amulet is the result of this year’s stimulating and successful Tower Poetry Summer School.

In workshops, we wrote together, on the spot, to some prompt or another. We all read the resulting first drafts aloud. The experience was exhilarating for us all. These young poets all show talent, passion and energy. You need all three to become a poet.

Gillian Clarke

Many years ago, when I first began to write, there was nothing like the Tower summer school. How I wish there had been. Confidence is, after talent, the single most important ingredient for success in any artistic endeavour, and the earlier it comes the better.

Polly Clark