'Paradise of Exiles: find a unique writing style with Pele Cox and the Romantic poets
Join poet, performance artist , and filmmaker Pele Cox for a weekly poetry salon. Nestled in the Gather spaces, you will explore your own and each others poetry through the lens of the English language poets and travellers to Italy, which Shelley called the Paradise of Exiles.
Each session has a creative writing element, with participants bringing poems or prose they have written, whilst readings will include Thomas Wyatt, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Elizabeth and Robert Barrett Browning, DH Lawrence, and the Italian poets that inspired them, from Virgil and Ovid to Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, and more.
This is a great course for practicing poets as well as poetry enthusiasts looking to engage or re-engage with these major English language poets whilst also sharing your own poetic practice.
Pele Cox is a Ludlow resident and has been poet in Residence at TATE, John Murray, Keats-Shelley House, British School at Rome and Royal Academy of Arts. During the Covid-19 lockdown she made and streamed her first short, Lift Me Up, I Am Dying (on the death of John Keats), which was reviewed in the FT Arts section. Her next film, Dreamboat commemorates Shelley and has been filmed in Venice and London. Her work has been featured and reviewed in the FT, Sunday Times Magazine, Sunday Times Culture section, RA magazine, TATE, The Oldie, The London Magazine, and The Guardian.
£55 for all six sessions.
Six weeks of Wednesdays, 5:30- 7:30pm.
SESSION OUTLINES:
22 May - 'Paradise of Exiles'
The Romantics in Italy, Keats/Shelley/Byron. Why exactly did these poets leave their homeland for European shores? How did this shape their fame and futures?
29 May - 'Love among Ruins'
Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning – sonnets and dramatic monologues. Elizabeth Barrett Browning left England to be with Robert Browning in Rome. Which formed one of great poetry couplings of all time, we will study their poems as examples of two great writing minds living in exile together.
5 June - 'The Hunter and the Hunted - How Poetry was born to Tudor England'
Petrarch and Thomas Wyatt. Thomas Wyatt poetry was influenced by the sonnets of the Italian poet Petrarch. He also wrote ‘Whoso List To Hunt,’ the great love poem to Ann Boleyn. Some say it was because of his poetry that he didn’t lose his head…
12 June - 'Uphill'
Christina Rossetti. ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’ and ‘Goblin Market’. One of the authors of the pre-Raphaelite imagination and sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, niece to Frances Polidori Byron’s doctor,. We will learn about her skill and prowess as a poet.
19 June- The Legacy of Dante
And the epic in British Poetry and overview. We will study the stories, legacy structure and different translations of this great Italian masterpiece.
26 June - Twilight in Italy
Modern poets in Italy: Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence, Jamie McKendrick.
Pele Cox
Pele is a poet, performance artist, and film maker. She has been poet in Residence at TATE, John Murray, Keats-Shelley House, British School at Rome and Royal Academy of Arts. During the Covid-19 lockdown she made and streamed her first short,Lift Me Up, I Am Dying (on the death of John Keats), which was reviewed in the FT Arts section. Damian Lewis and Nicholas Rowe starred. Her next film, Dreamboat commemorates Shelley and has been filmed in Venice and London. Vincent and the Poets was performed in February 2022 at the Courtauld Institute to coincide with the exhibition Van Gogh’s Self Portraits. Her work has also been performed at BAFTA, Keats-Shelley House, John Murray, British School at Rome, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Todi Festival, Ledbury Poetry Festival, Bradford Literature Festival, and the Villa Wolkonsky. Her work has been featured and reviewed in the FT, Sunday Times Magazine, Sunday Times Culture section, RA magazine, TATE, The Oldie, The London Magazine, and The Guardian.
Testimonials
I’ve wanted to write poetry my whole life. Pelé is showing me how. And in doing so she’s changing my whole life. Her way with words is transformative – magical almost. Working with Pelé will be the best investment you make both professionally and personally.
Pelé has the unique gift of connecting with you and seeing in you what you can’t, and thereby enabling your true poetic voice. It’s thanks to her that I found mine
Pelé Cox is an accomplished writer and a wonderful instructor in creative writing. I was keen to sharpen my abilities in short fiction, and Pelé introduced me to new literature and new approaches to writing. Whether we were discussing Graham Greene or Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Cormac McCarthy or Camus, our sessions were a highlight of my week and gave me ideas to put to work. I appreciated her exquisite taste in literature, love for the written word, and sensitivity to the human condition.