Poetry Crafting Workshop - Newtown: One Session / 6-Week Course

POETRY CRAFTING WORKSHOP

Course: 6 weeks, 2 hours weekly

Date: April 28, 2026 - June 2, 2026

Time: 6.30pm-8.30pm (with one 10-minute interval)

Price: $45 solo/$75 duo for single sessions, $199 for the entire 6-week course for one person; Concession $35 for a single session please show a non-digital student ID (with expiry date) or a valid Senior, Pensioner or other concession card when entering.

Venue: 852 Hong Kong Restaurant (Restaurant will be closed to other customers during these workshops)

Address: Shop 6a/503 King Street, Newtown 2042

Ages: 16 years and over

*Disabled access to restaurant main entry and bathroom.

*Microphone, stand and amplifier available on-site.

*Free Wi-fi available

*Support dogs allowed 

What to bring:

• Please bring pen and paper or fully charged device if you wish to record written notes.

House Rules:

• No photos, video filming or audio recording during class.

• Please do not eat during class.

• Available to purchase at the restaurant before and after class, and in intervals: juice, tea, soft drinks

• Available to buy after class: wine, beer

• This is a safe space: please show respect to staff and all members of the class.

• Please ensure your mobile devices are all on silent mode

OVERVIEW:

You love words. You have things to say and you know you want to say them in a poem.

But capturing on the page what is in your mind – and heart – can feel overwhelming.

This course, led by experienced poetry event convenor, published poet, novelist and magazine editor ROBERTA LOWING, is designed to accelerate your poetry-writing progress by showing you how to unlock the words within.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1 (Apr 28): Creating: Ideas And Inspiration.

·   Playing with poetry forms to spark your imagination

·   Creative writing prompts, collages and found poems, black-out poetry, dada, flarf

·   Rhyme and rhythm in shorter forms

Week 2 (May 05): Creating: Finding Your Own Voice (And Listening To It).

·   The importance of reading aloud (to yourself)

·   Medium length forms: ghazal, villanelle, sonnet

·   Prose poems, confessional poetry, the dramatic monologue

Week 3 (May 12): Creating: A Poetic Form For Every Mood.

·  Longer forms: the pantoum, the sestina

·  Lyric poetry, political poetry, poetry mine-fields (triggering content)

Week 4 (May 19): Crafting: Editing And Revision. 

·   Finding a regular writing routine and writing groups

·   Editing tricks: lay-out and critiquing your work

·   Finding the right title for your poem

Week 5 (May 26): Communication: Submitting And Promoting Your Work.

·   Submitting to publishers and competitions

·   Promoting yourself: pitches and poetrytok

·   Tips for reading at open mic events and poetry slams

Week 6 (Jun 02): Communication: At The Mic And Next Steps.  

·   Practical session: focus on reading at the microphone

·   How not to annoy event convenors or lose slam points

·   Course review and details of the Advance Poetry Course

Course Enquiries: Please email rlowing2024@gmail.com

Venue Enquiries: 0450270705

ABOUT THE TEACHER

Roberta Lowing’s poems have appeared in journals such as Meanjin, Cordite, Southerly, Rabbit, Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology, Best Australian Poems, Groundswell: The Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize 2007-2020 Edited by Toby Fitch, and Aesthetica Creative Writing Award Anthology (UK). Her concrete poem, ‘The Cheese Poem’, appears in the 2025 illustrated anthology, This Is Us: Essential Australian Poems For Young People.

            Roberta’s first collection of poetry, Ruin (a 55-poem sequence on the Iraq War), was co-winner of the 2011 Asher Literary Award. Her second full-length collection, The Searchers was published in 2014. Her most recent collection This Attic of Fire references historical and looming environmental disasters

Her first novel, the romantic thriller Notorious, was shortlisted for the 2011 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards and the 2011 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize Best Book (South-East Asia and Pacific Region). Notorious was also published in Canada by House Of Anansi.

            Previously a full-time film critic for Fairfax Newspapers and Nine Media on-line, Roberta attended the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals for ten years, filing news reports, interviews and features on the local and international film industries, and travel features on Europe and England. She was awarded a Doctor of Arts from the University of Sydney for her thesis on female screen representation.

For the past six years, Roberta has published The Poetry News, a free weekly e-newsletter of local poetry events, with e-subscribers in Australia, England, India and America, and the monthly, printed The Poetry News Magazine which features international poetry listings in addition to listings of Australian poetry events, journal submissions, competitions, creative writing exercises, authors opportunities and more. Sydney-based independent publisher Apothecary Archive Press also publishes a monthly e-version of The Poetry News Magazine.

Since 2025, Roberta has hosted the weekly poetry event Open Mic Poetry Mondays – at 8:52Restaurant, 503 King Street, Newtown, Sydney; the event currently offers 24-30 open mic reading slots every week. She is co-owner – with Mark Marusic, convenor of the monthly Poets At The Petersham Bowling Club Open Mic – of The Poets Cavern Poetry, Art And Papercraft Stall, which sells poetry books, magazines and bookmarks at Sydney’s inner-city markets and pop-up street stalls. Roberta previously ran monthly Open Mic events at Glebe’s Harold Park Hotel and Sappho Books, Café & Bar.

            Roberta’s film reviews were collected in The Sunday Age and Sun-Herald Family DVD Guide (Fairfax Books, 2006). Her children’s comedy adventure novel My Pet Octopus Is A Top Darts Player was published in 2014. She co-edited an anthology of fiction and poetry written by University of Sydney Master of Arts students, and in 2007, she published Illumina, which collected poems from emerging writers as well as essays from Australia’s leading poets. Roberta also co-produced and directed a weekly environmental half-hour television show for Community Television’s Channel 31 for four years.