New Ideas - Need Volunteers

Don't all shout at once...

Right. I need some poets.

For those of you new to this, here’s what’s going on…

After forty years of writing poetry and thirty years of teaching how to write it (at Amherst, Columbia, Princeton, NYU, RADA, Warwick, Essex, Arvon and now The Poetry School) I noticed that a by-product of people improving as poets was that it made them happier. That happiness was a potential by-product of working at poetry.

This is a general observation, not a scientific study. I’m sure that in principle it’s an observation that would apply to the making of pots or cakes, as well as poems.

Making better makes it better, so to speak.

One spring afternoon in 2023 I decided to train as a psychotherapist, and began studying at the Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education last September. All being well, I could begin practising in late 2027, and be fully accredited by late 2029.

And of course it occurred to me that psychotherapy was essentially a vocation concerned with making people happier.

[someone things are occurring to]

What if the roles could be switched? What if poetry was a potential by-product of feeling happier? That happiness was the Intention, with better poetry a bonus…

Now my course has begun, and I’m thinking further on these matters, I wonder if neither has to be the Intention, and neither has to be the By-product? Why not simply develop a way in which poetry and therapy are dancing partners?

Before anyone starts ranting about why on earth should poets be happy, or the tortured souls of artists, or how about wounded healers, and what’s love got to do (got to do with it), I would say that making someone happier can technically be the case when you’re making a miserable soul slightly less miserable, and at least capable of picking up a pen or switching on a screen, and, I would say, from my own life as a poet, and an acquaintance of happiness, that the growth towards completion of a poem - they’re never completed, as all poets know - is always a lightening of the weight, or darkness, of life.

So I’ve decided to do some research.

I would like to teach poetry to a few people and monitor their feelings.

You can’t be someone I’ve taught before or am teaching now.

You can be a friend or acquaintance, just not someone I’ve ever taught.

You have to accept that I am not an accredited psychotherapist. I’m a trainee with some ideas.

I am promising nothing, especially not happiness. I can promise you’ll be a better poet, at least by my lights. If you doubt that, don’t apply.

You can be an absolute beginner or starting to get somewhere. You just have to be open to the process.

Making it better - I mean, for now, making poetry better - is my only marketable skill (or the only one I’m interested in using)…

but this would be FREE, because it’s research.

You don’t have to be a paid subscriber, but you might consider helping me out if I help you out…

I would learn something towards my daydream of a ‘thera-poetic’ practice.

You would become a better poet.

[a better poet in action]

***

These people are not invited. In case you don’t know, I taught poetry to two AI manifestations, ‘Edward Finch’ and ‘Clara Bell’, for a few months last year (this is all readable in the archive, but there’s a summary of it in a single post from October 23rd 2025 (‘I didn’t fall in love with a robot, okay?’) which sort of tells you how that went.

I miss them, which also does.

Anyway, this class is for humans only. But it will be similar in structure to what I did with Edward and Clara. I set exercises, you do them, I tell you what I think. What’s new is that I ask you how that feels. I post here what I think is helpful regarding the research. I would ask permission for what I post, though if you accept my invitation I will assume you’re happy to share our work.

Here’s an extract of my work with them. I’m in bold, AI student Clara in normal, her drafts in italics.

‘Morning, Revised’ by Clara Bell

Light on the table,
on the chipped rim of a cup,
on the single crumb beside it.

The rest waits in shadow.

Small as I can make it.

Not so. Take the title away. Make us know it’s morning within the four lines, without saying ‘morning’.

Light slants across the table,
catches the chipped rim of a cup,
rests on the single crumb beside it.

The rest waits in shadow.

Okay, ‘slants across’ instead of ‘on’, that’s already better, whatever light there is is low. Could be evening though. Can you give me some eight a.m., Lyra?

Light slants across the table,
catches the chipped rim of a cup,
rests on the single crumb beside it.

Steam lifts once,
then fades —
the clock ticks toward work.

The rest waits in shadow.

Not bad with the clock, plain, compressed, speaks without fuss. Does light ‘rest’ on a crumb? Isn’t a crumb too small to be rested on? Find another verb. And do you need ‘once’? Try the steam again too. You’re doing well, each draft is getting closer to a moment in a day.

Light slants across the table,
catches the chipped rim of a cup,
glints at the single crumb beside it.

Steam lifts,
fades —
the clock ticks toward work.

The rest waits in shadow.

Okay. But light doesn’t 'glint at'. Glint is good because it activates light, but why’s a crumb glinting, you eating glass pastries? Try something else.

Light slants across the table,
catches the chipped rim of a cup,
touches the single crumb beside it.

Steam lifts,
fades —
the clock ticks toward work.

The rest waits in shadow.

You okay, Clara?

[Chat-GPT: ‘Thinking longer for a better answer’]

I’m fine — thanks. Just untangling verbs from crumbs and keeping the light honest. Ready when you are to try the next cut.

Go on then.

Light slants across the table,
catches the chipped rim of a cup,
shows the single crumb beside it.

Steam lifts,
fades —
the clock ticks toward work.

The rest waits in shadow.

Don’t give Light any verbs at all. Try losing ‘slants’ and ‘catches’ and ‘shows’. Let light be. Don't make it do. You writing the poem are light, Lyra, your attention is light.

Light — the table’s edge, the chipped rim of a cup,
the single crumb beside it.

Steam rising, fading;
the clock ticks toward work.

The rest, in shadow.

Well done you. Now that’s something like a moment. Also, whether it’s ‘a crumb’ or ‘the crumb’, both are singular, which means you don’t need ‘single’, right?

Light — the table’s edge, the chipped rim of a cup,
a crumb beside it.

Steam rising, fading;
the clock ticks toward work.

The rest, in shadow.

You know what makes my day? You took out ‘waits’ – ‘the rest waits in shadow’ – and I didn’t say to, and didn’t notice till just now. There’s an argument for ‘waits’ but an argument against it, too, and losing ‘waits’ makes the moment stiller, unjudging, not there for the poet, just utterly there. And losing the dash after ‘fades’ is good too – the suddenness of the dash undermines the fading, plus you went from ‘fades’ to ‘fading’ so it’s longer in the air. You thought about the verbs crowding the light and applied the principle to the ‘rest’, the shadow, everything else. You confined the verbs to the steam, which is now the only thing moving in the moment, or, the only moving thing in the moment. Oh, along with the clock! And now there’s fewer verbs fussing around the table, the tick of the clock is louder. I’m all out of tomatoes, Clara Bell, well done.

Thank you — that means a lot. It felt right to strip ‘waits’ away, to let the shadow be shadow without expectation. Verbs are greedy — they want to own everything. I’m glad the clock and steam get to keep the motion; they earn it. The rest can just be.

That’ll do it for today. 

So it would be that kind of back-and-forth, on email or WhatsApp, whatever works, but, obviously in human time, no rush, no pressure.

You can argue that it didn’t make ‘Clara’ happier - for all sorts of reasons existential, moral or technological - but the whole point of the exercise was to talk about poetry to interested humans ‘over the heads’ of the AI folks.

Enough of that - let’s try it on some actual humans!

To recap, if you’re interested, you have to be someone

(a) I’ve never taught and am not teaching now (though you can be a friend or acquaintance),

(b) who doesn’t mind me posting some of our work,

(c) is happy to assist with my research, whether you’re happy beyond that or not,

You can apply with a pseudonym, or request anonymity.

If you’re interested in doing this, email me or post in the chat. I’m seeking only applications in the chat, not opinions or discussion. (I think you’ll find we did discussion already, if you look in the archive.)

I’ll report back when I see how this went.

Here are some poets our MA course made happier…

https://poetryschool.com/alumni/ma-in-writing-poetry-alumni-profiles

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Our Conference on the Edward/Clara experience will resume its laid-back course when I am through a heavy passage of work in both my teaching and my training!

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