Next Steps for Poets: Difficult Poems
Date: Thursday 10 September - Thursday 3 December 2026
Time: 17.15 - 19.15
Venue: Crescent Arts Center, Belfast
Price: 144 £144 | £132
Weeks: 12
Tutor: Natasha Cuddington
Level: Intermediate
Half Term: 26 October - 1 November
Book NowGuided by Charles Bernstein’s 2003 essay ‘The Difficult Poem’ this 12-week course has been designed for those with some experience of reading and writing poetry.
In addition to developing critical discourse, participants will explore the extent to which ‘Difficult poems are normal [and] not incoherent, meaningless, or hostile’ and how we tend as readers ‘to idealize the accessible poem.’
Participants will also explore, by way of their own experimentation with difficult poetry and also its performance, Bernstein’s notion that ‘just because a poem is not popular doesn't meanit has no value!’
Meeet the tutor
Natasha Cuddington was born in Saskatchewan, Canada. A writing facilitator with experience in a variety of contexts, her translations, poetry, essays and reviews have appeared variously on both sides of the Atlantic.
A recipient of the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary in 2017, she has gone on to publish her début, Each of us (our chronic alphabets) (Arlen House, 2018) and to co-edit Her Other Language: Northern Irish Women Writers Address Domestic Violence and Abuse (Arlen House, 2020). She is an assistant editor at Cyphers and Managing Editor of the newly founded Macha Press.
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