Get It Together:
making a poetry pamphlet
Pamphlets play a vital role in the contemporary poetry ecosystem – announcing the arrival of new and powerful voices on the scene and allowing more established writers to experiment and develop a small, focused body of work clustered around a specific theme. Historically a medium used by politicians and philosophical thinkers who have a strong message and something to say, pamphlets show no sign of diminishing power as a form that is perfect for reading in one sitting. There’s a lot to be said for being brief.
A poetry pamphlet is usually a small collection of around 15 to 30 poems, that circle around a theme (though not always – there are plenty of exceptions to the rule)! It is your opportunity to make readers and publishers aware of your work, quite possibly for the very first time, and to begin to build a presence in the poetry community.
But how do you put a pamphlet together? Which poems should you choose? What order should you put them in? Which should go first and last? What about the title? Which publishers could you send it to? In this day-long workshop we’ll answer these questions, consider some highly successful examples of pamphlets by published poets and by the end of the day you should have a draft pamphlet pretty much ready to go.
You will need ideally to have at least 20 poems which you will print out and bring along with you. Alternatively, you are welcome to come along if you’re at the stage of thinking that putting together a pamphlet for publication could be for you.
This group will need a minimum of five participants to be viable – do tell your friends and anyone how might be interested!
Tutors: JLM Morton & Alun Hughes
Venue: Stroud Library, Five Valleys Shopping Centre, King St, Stroud GL5 1RR (this venue is fully accessible)
Date / time: Friday 7th February, 10am - 3.30pm
Cost: £45 for the whole day. Is money a bit tight at the end of the year? To help out, we’ve also included a £15 deposit option to secure your space - balance payable by 1st February 2025.
Your Tutors
JLM Morton
JLM Morton is from Gloucestershire in the west of England. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry Review, Rialto, Magma, Mslexia, The London Magazine, Berlin Lit, Anthropocene, Bad Lilies, Modron, The Sunday Telegraph and elsewhere. Highly commended by the Forward Prizes, she is also the winner of the Laurie Lee and Geoffrey Dearmer prizes. Her first poetry collection is Red Handed, out now with Broken Sleep Books (2024). Juliette has collaborated with musicians, artists and field recordists and had residencies at the Cotswold Water Park, Stroudwater Textile Trust, Corinium Museum and Sladebank Woods. She is currently writing her next book with the support of an Authors Foundation grant.
Alun Hughes
Alun Hughes is a poet and non fiction writer living in Stroud, Gloucestershire. In 2021, he was a digital writer in residence with Dialect at the Cotswold Water Park and won third prize in the Troubadour International Poetry Competition. In 2022, he was shortlisted for the Laurie Lee Prize. His poetry pamphlet Down the Heavens, is published by Yew Tree Press. Somewhere Somewhere, an album of nine poems from the collection to original soundtracks, made with the band Lensmen, is available at lensmen.bandcamp.com. His work has been published by Ambient Receiver, Amplify Stroud, Steel Jackdaw and as Salmon Paths on Substack. He is currently working on his next collections, making poetry films and developing and organising community storytelling events and creative writing workshops.
His writing is based in nature-based practice and indigenous perspectives.
https://alunhughes.substack.com / Instagram @alunowl