Date/Time
Date(s) - Tue 7th Apr - Thu 30th Apr, 2026
6:30pm - 9:00pm
When the Body Breaks: Poetics of the Body, Illness, and Care
This course will explore the profound and intimate relationships between the body, trauma, and healing. Drawing on works by Paisley Rekdal, Fiona Benson, John Glenday, Mary Oliver, Natalie Linh Bolderston, Walt Whitman, and others, the workshops will investigate how the body functions as both a vessel of beauty and vulnerability. Over the course, you will engage with poems that examine the emotional and physical tolls of illness, personal identity, and care, using creative exercises to help you reflect on your own experiences and express them through poetry. You will leave with a deeper understanding of the body’s role in both art and life, learning how pain, vulnerability, and healing often lead to personal and artistic transformation.
Moniack in a Month: When the Body Breaks includes:
- a short introductory welcome session
- four stimulating online workshops, preceded by optional drop-in social time
- one 30-minute tutorial
- a final ceilidh session – sharing of work
- Contact and support from your community of writers via Google Classroom (optional)
- Drop-ins before each workshop to help you get to know your group (optional)
- Support from your Moniack Mhor host
Romalyn’s workshops will focus on the following themes:
Workshop 1 – Introduction to the Poetics of the Body
In this session, we’ll explore how poets use the body as a vessel for both beauty and pain. Through discussion and creative prompts, we’ll consider how personal experiences of the body shape our writing.
Workshop 2 – The Vessel Breaks
This workshop focuses on the body through pain, illness, and grief. Using the extended metaphor of vessels, we’ll write about our own or others’ experiences of bodily change and explore how these transformations can inspire our work.
Workshop 3 – Care, Healing, and the Body’s Endurance
We’ll examine the body’s silent endurance of pain and the power of care and healing, using poems that explore both physical and emotional resilience.
Workshop 4 – The Politics and Poetics of the Body
This session will delve into how the body reflects personal and political identity. Participants will explore how societal perceptions of the body shape individual experiences and how bodily grief can lead to powerful transformation.
Timetable
Week 1 Tuesday 7 Apr 18:30–21:00 Welcome Session and Workshop 1
Week 2 Tuesday 14 Apr 19.00-21.00 Workshop 2
Week 3 Tuesday 21 Apr 19.00-21.00 Workshop 3
Week 4 Tuesday 28 Apr 19.00-21.00 Workshop 4
Week 4 Friday 30 Apr 19.00-21.00 Ceilidh
Tutorials
Your one-to-one tutorial with Romalyn will be scheduled when the course starts and will most likely take place in weeks 2 or 3.
Tutor
Romalyn Ante FRSL is an award-winning Filipino-born British poet and editor. She currently sits on the editorial board for Poetry London. Romalyn was born and raised in Lipa, Philippines, and migrated to the UK in 2005. She writes in English as her second language.
Her debut collection, Antiemetic for Homesickness (Chatto, 2020), was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her second collection, AGIMAT (Chatto, 2024), was awarded the Arthur Welton Award, and was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and The Observer Poetry Book of the Month.
Her debut novel, The Left-Behind Child, will be published by Chatto in July 2026.
Fees
The full fee for this online course is £360. A deposit of £100 is required to secure your place, which is non-refundable after a 14-day cooling-off period. The balance payment of £260 is due six weeks before the course begins.
Bursaries are available, and you also have the option to pay in instalments, please email online@moniackmhor.org.uk to enquire.
All activity takes place on Zoom, and workshops include a short break. Moniack Mhor staff will be on hand to support you during your course.
For more information please email online@moniackmhor.org.uk.
Access
Please let us know in your booking form if you have any access requirements when working online so we can do our best to support you. For more information about access to our courses, please visit our Access page.
Terms and Conditions
Please read our Terms & Conditions before booking.