Welcome!

Poetry is perhaps the concentrated of the literary genres, combining narrative, heightened emotion, and image in a tight structure. Many of us learned in school to fear poetry-- this course breaks down its mystery into elements we can all learn and play with. 

Primarily, I think of poems as the coming together of three artistic toolkits -- that of language, that of music, and that of the visual arts. Over six sessions, we read and write together, playing with each of these elements, and allowing them to surprise us. While poets will of course benefit from this instruction, prose writers too can gain from a deeper understanding of rhythm, image, metaphor and other poetic elements. 

The Plus version of this course is capped at 12 participants and includes weekly video calls for individual feedback and manuscript review. The course will work well for beginning and intermediate writers alike.

Recorded video lessons for the course will release every Monday, starting 6th September, and our weekly Zoom calls will take place on Sundays at 6 PM IST, starting 12 September.

Course Full

This workshop is full. Please consider signing up for the Self-Paced version instead.

Take me there.

Curriculum

  • 1

    Welcome Aboard

  • 2

    Weekly Call details

    • Zoom Call Details

    • Link to Video Call
  • 3

    The Craft of Poetry

  • 4

    Call Recordings

    • 12 September Zoom Call

    • 19 Sept

    • 26 September

    • 3 October Zoom Call

    • 10 October

    • 17 October
  • 5

    Review

    • Congratulations, you're done!

Testimonials

Writing in Supportive Environs

by Urvashi Bahuguna, author of Terrarium (The Great Indian Poetry Collective, 2018) and No Straight Thing Was Ever Made (Penguin, 2020)

Aditi Rao’s weekly writing workshop changed my relationship with writing. Writing with her established for me something I hadn’t realised held true for me: I thrive in homes rather than classrooms, in community rather in isolation, in supportive environs rather than competitive ones. The smell of milky coffee and brownies still brings back memories of those afternoons where I first learned how important it is to have a community of writers.

The Courage to Use My Own Voice

Kuhu Joshi, Poet and Researcher

Aditi’s workshops gave me the most essential ingredient to write with: the courage to use my own voice. I found self-belief in a community where everyone felt safe, heard and seen. And the teaching of craft was blended in so brilliantly, sometimes I would look down at my notebook and think, oh, I just used all these metaphors, oh, I just created this quirky character! It really changed my life. I’ve grown braver, kinder and more attentive, my poems are getting published, I was long listed for the TOTO award, and I just began the MFA program in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College in New York: all things I didn’t imagine were possible for me a year ago when I had completely lost my self-esteem and identity