“Now it appears to me that almost any Man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own airy Citadel—the points of leaves and twigs on which the spider begins her work are few, and she fills the air with a beautiful circuiting.” 

(John Keats, in a letter to John Hamilton Reynolds)

Explore the “airy citadels” of your imagination from the comfort of your living room. 

This has been a challenging time for all of us, but if we’re able to look at these limits from a poetic standpoint, perhaps we can see certain positive aspects. We’ve been forced to slow down, to take notice of the tiniest detail, to sit and be still with ourselves. An excellent recipe for writing. 

During this quiet time, have you been exploring the “airy citadels” of your imagination? Are you keeping track of your thoughts and feelings, writing poems or short pieces of prose — and you don’t quite know what to do with them? Would you like some expert guidance on working with figurative language, imagery, maybe even thoughts about rhyme and metre?

The Keats-Shelley House is pleased to offer Airy Citadels: Online Poetry-Writing Consultations and Workshops from April 2020. Tutor Moira Egan isa widely published, award-winning American poet who has been teaching literature and creative writing for more than twenty-five years. She is extraordinarily proud of her students, who, over the years, have won many awards and have published their work, in noted journals as well as in full-length collections and chapbooks. She is also a long-time collaborator of the Keats-Shelley House.

There are two possibilities to work on your writing with Moira:

Individual consultations: A 1-hour Zoom session to discuss your work (1-3 poems, approximately 14-60 lines). On booking, please suggest three alternative time slots and we will do our best to allocate your preferred time.  

€35 for a one-hour Zoom session of 1-3 poems.

Online workshops: A once-weekly Zoom workshop meeting, 1 or 1.5 hours per week, depending upon the size of the group. Groups of friends, colleagues, already-established book clubs or writing groups are welcome to contact us to set up a workshop. €150 for 6-week workshop.

Use this time for yourself and your writing. Individual consultations can be booked starting 16 April and will take place on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Workshops will begin the week of 20 April, also on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday. Appointments must be reserved in advance at [email protected].

About the workshop leader:

Moira Egan has been teaching literature and creative writing for more than twenty-five years. Her students have won numerous awards, and have published chapbooks, full-length poetry collections, as well as work in literary journals and anthologies. Moira’s most recent poetry collections are Synæsthesium (The New Criterion Poetry Prize, 2017) and Olfactorium (Italic Pequod, 2018).

Moira’s work has won many awards and has appeared in journals and anthologies on four continents. With her husband, Damiano Abeni, she has published more than a dozen volumes in translation in Italy, by authors such as Ashbery, Barth, Bender, Ferlinghetti, Hecht, Strand, and others. She holds degrees from Bryn Mawr College, Johns Hopkins University, and Columbia University, where James Merrill chose her graduate poetry manuscript for the David Craig Austin Prize.