The Writing School is running an online generative workshop on erotic poetry facilitated by Robert Hamberger.

Poems by Sappho and three contemporary erotic poems by Adrienne Rich, Sharon Olds, and James L. White will be studied as part of the session.

About your tutor

Robert Hamberger has been shortlisted and highly commended for Forward prizes. He won The London Magazine Poetry Prize in 2023 and has been awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship. His poetry has been published in The Observer, The Spectator, New Statesman, Gay Times, The Poetry Review, Poetry London, The North, Magma and The Gay & Lesbian Review. He has twice been featured as the Guardian Poem of the Week and has appeared in British, American, Irish and Japanese anthologies. Blue Wallpaper (Waterloo Press) was shortlisted for the 2020 Polari Book Prize. His memoir with poems A Length of Road: Finding myself in the footsteps of John Clare was published by John Murray in 2021. His fifth collection Nude Against A Rock (Waterloo Press) was published in 2024 and longlisted for the Polari Book Prize, 2025.He lives in Brighton. His website is www.roberthamberger.co.uk   

What will we be writing about?

Over two thousand years ago, Sappho knew about fire under skin, knew how the body takes over. In this workshop we’ll explore Sappho and three contemporary erotic poems by Adrienne Rich, Sharon Olds and James L. White. We’ll see their various ways into the passionate body as portals for opening our own erotic love poems, like a ‘rose-wet cave.’