Culture Matters is proud to present two online poetry workshops on the theme of The Sacred and the Profane, led by award-winning poet Jenny Mitchell.

How can poetry help us to reimagine traditional ideas about belief? How can poetic approaches to spirituality and worship lead us to a renewed sense of Joy, Wonder, and Hope? And how might this help to shape a more radical and compassionate future?

The award-winning poet Jenny Mitchell will offer 2 online workshops of 2 hours each, using poetry prompts to encourage participants to write about secular and non-secular beliefs in a relaxed and creative atmosphere. There will be an opportunity to share work and receive constructive feedback, with ample time between sessions for participants to absorb ideas and craft their poetic responses. The workshops are open to new and experienced poets alike.

Dates: 29th May and 5th June from 4-6pm on both days. Fee: £5 for each session, with two free places. First come, first served. 25 Participants max. Sign up here to receive link.

The event will be hosted by Culture Matters' Commissioning Editor, Fran Lock, who will also introduce the Bread and Roses Poetry Award 2024.

Jenny Mitchell is winner of the Poetry Book Awards 2021, the Bedford Prize, the Ware Prize and joint winner of the Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize 2019. Her poems have been widely published and she has been nominated twice for the Forward Prize: Best Single Poem. The best-selling debut collection, Her Lost Language, is ‘One of 44 Poetry Books for 2019’ (Poetry Wales). Her second collection, Map of a Plantation, has been chosen as a ‘Literary Find’ (Irish Independent), and both books are on the syllabus of Manchester Metropolitan University. Her latest collection is called Resurrection of a Black Man.

Fran Lock Ph. D. is a poet, writer and activist, shortlisted for the 2023 TS Eliot Poetry Prize, and the former Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellow at Cambridge University (2022-2023). She is the author of thirteen poetry collections, most recently 'a disgusting lie' (further adventures through the neo-liberal hell mouth), published by Pamenar Press in September 2023. She is a member of the New Editorial Advisory Board for the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry, and she edits the Soul Food column for Communist Review. A collection of essays exploring feral subjectivity through the lens of the medieval bestiary is forthcoming from Out-Spoken Press later this year. Fran is an Associate Editor at Culture Matters.