Have a very Out-Spoken (and faintly pagan) Christmas!

Join Fiona Benson for a playful session of festive writing focused on generating lots of first drafts to work on in the ongoing winter season. Seeking inspiration from poems of the winter city, favourite tinsel and tat, Christmas trees and mistletoe, we will explore some personal winter fables as well as hearing tales of folk noir Christmas creatures like the Krampus, the Yule Kat, and poor old wandering Babushka. We will spend the last part of our session crafting little Christmas poetry zines - lovely little keepsakes to hang on the tree or give to someone. As Jane Kenyon writes in 'Taking Down the Christmas Tree: "If it's darkness / we're having, let it be extravagant."

You will need:

• A rectangle of paper of anything up to A4 size to fold up for your zine. Christmassy images torn out of magazine and old calendars etc might work well.

• Glue

• Scissors (or a scalpel and cutting mat if you're feeling extra)

• Any old scraps of text you don't mind cutting up - magazines, papers, instruction manuals, Christmas round robins.....

• Ditto for images you might like to collage on to your Christmas zine

If you own Christmas attire (jumpers, hats, fairy lights) it is of course mandatory that you wear it!

Max: 30 ppl
Price £25
Duration 3 hours

Fiona Benson's work includes the four Cape poetry collections Bright Travellers (2014), Vertigo & Ghost (2019),  Ephemeron (2022) and Midden Witch (forthcoming, 2025); a choreopoem written in collaboration with the Belgian choreographer Wim Vanderkeybus called Infamous Offspring (2023) which has been performed across Europe, and many commissions and  pamphlets. She has taught extensively for Arvon, the Poetry School & Exeter University amongst others, and has mentored poets including Romalyn Ante, Amelia Loulli and Charlotte Shevchenko-Knight.  She lives in mid-Devon with her husband and their two daughters.

Playback

If you are unable to attend this workshop, we’re pleased to be able to make a session recording available for purchase for limited duration viewing — PLAYBACK: Let it be Extravagant with Fiona Benson Recording

Purchase Link

When you purchase this item, you will be directly emailed a link to a document for downloading. This document contains the zoom link for the session. Please note that you should download this document within 24 hours of opening the link otherwise it expires (if you do have any issues with this please email press@outspokenldn.com)

Zoom Recording

Please note that this Zoom session will be recorded. A playback link will be sent afterwards to all participants in that session. Password-protected playback links are also available for purchase for limited duration viewing.