Poetry is an art with a history going back 40 centuries. Becoming a poet is the aspiration of most people, but only a few succeed in becoming known poets. Thanks to the omnipresence of the Internet, now the opportunity to learn the craft of poetry via online classes and programs has expanded. Here we will discuss at least a dozen poetry classes for beginners.
Online poetry courses enable flexible learning at your pace and comfort. Now let us dive into the best online poetry courses to learn poetry or hone your poetry-making skills as the answer to the question what are the poetry classes near me?
1. Introducing Poem-making Skills [Skillshare]
This introductory poem class is fabulous as a starter for writing poems as far as poetry classes for beginners are concerned. Cameron Conaway, the instructor, has been a writer and poet. The session gives a fine idea of how to start a poem with a theme and how you can find a thread to make a poem. The course also provides discussion forums to share poems and receive comments to enrich the craft. Available on the Skillshare platform, the course can help users take poetry classes with a 1-month free trial.
2. Embrace Diversity of Poetry and Devices [Skillshare]
This 150-minute online class offers broad exposure to the tools and techniques of poetry while you walk through literary devices like rhyme and meter. The instructor Gwyneth Box excels at conveying the art form’s expressive power in weaving various poetic elements. She also offers tips on how to publish your work. The SkillShare course has valuable downloadable resources as poetry classes for beginners.
3. Techniques to Compose Poems [Skillshare]
The course walks you through the fundamentals of writing poetry and getting them published. The 30-minute course carries useful videos in which instructor Elizabeth Dean explains various techniques of poetry writing with a detailed exposition on imagery, sound, and style. The SkillShare course has downloadable resources and a month-long free trial adding to the comfort level of poetry classes for beginners.
4. Making Process Behind a Poem [Future Learn]
![Making Process Behind a Poem [Future Learn]](https://cdn.fordhamram.com/wp-content/uploads/Making-Process-Behind-a-Poem-Future-Learn.png)
This online poetry class presents the secrets of creation behind a poem, from the spark of inspiration to the final published piece. Taught by experts from the University of Manchester, the program on Future Learn is billed as utilitarian. In the 3-week course, you will learn the dynamics of a poem’s meaning and structure in terms of line, stanza, and other elements. The Future Learn course is a good package of poetry classes for beginners. It offers vast resources to download, and the learner will be awarded a certificate once he completes the course.
5. Towards Writing Best Poetry [Udemy]
![Towards Writing Best Poetry [Udemy]](https://cdn.fordhamram.com/wp-content/uploads/Towards-Writing-Best-Poetry-Udemy.png)
The poetry classes for beginners will teach writing poetry from a newbie’s perspective with exposure to a good number of samples and structured exercises to sustain positive writing habits and creativity. It also explains how personal expression expands in poems. Instructor Serena Greenslade an author, and in the 90-minute video classes, all poetic tools, including modern free verse methods, are well explained. The downloadable resources of this Udemy course are pretty valuable.
6. Power Your Poem with Vision and Value [Coursera]
This online poetry class is good for both starters and experienced poets looking to enhance their standards and quality. From the starter’s view, this will appear as a poetry class for beginners as it explains how to write a poem with crisp editing of thoughts and words. In this, the 6-week Coursera class instructors from the California Institute of the Arts have to offer a good package of downloadable resources. The course also awards a certificate of completion at the end of the course.
7. Compose Magnificent Poetry [Skillshare]
This online poetry class teaches how to make a strong connection with readers regarding emotions, thoughts, and feelings. Instructor Hanif Abdurraqib is a music critic, and the video modules cover many areas, including abstract and narrative poetry. The Skillshare class offers downloadable resources and a free trial.
8. How to Pull Out your Poetry Book [Udemy]
When you have scribbled a couple of poems, you feel like publishing them. As a poetry class for beginners, this online course is useful to you. This course on Udemy is a hit with veteran writers and budding poets, as the video classes of Amy Lynn Hess have the substance to hone your poetic aptitude to its full potential. The 1.5-hour program also touches upon the complete dynamics of publishing. There are materials to download, and you also get a certificate of completion.
9. Poetry Stylization and Molding Your Voice [Udemy]
These free online poetry classes for beginners will help you find your unique poetic voice by polishing your skills in poetry writing. Trace Crawford, the instructor, gives exemplary tutorials in the exhaustive 210-minute course spread into nearly 50 videos discussing aspects like poetic concepts and writing various types of poetry. The course on Udemy also provides a certificate of completion.
10. A Window to Chinese Poetry [edX]
This poetry class online takes you to the fine aspects of Chinese poetry through different epochs with a heightened exposition of ideas and innovations that affect the world of creative thoughts. The course covers interesting aspects of Chinese elite culture. There will be 15 weeks of instruction where the Harvard University course modules handle composing poetry and stories as literature and history. The course hosted on Edx is rich in video transcripts and downloadable resources, with a certificate at the end of the course.
11. Training Free Verse American Poetry [ClassCentral]
In this poetry class for beginners, you will walk into the world of modern American poetry with a thrust on experimental verse, with examples from the works of masters like Emily Dickinson and Whitman and their eras to modern-day innovations. Participants will learn to analyze poems, and their doubts will be cleared by the experts in the ModPo team.
12. Learn Poetry and the Art of Performance [ClassCentral]
The 8-week course also teaches popular poems and ways to dramatize them for visual performances. One example is PB Shelley’s lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound, made into a live concert. This course makes use of the performance video to discuss Shelley’s work. Students can use audio, video, and text amalgam as aids to the poetry studies.
Rising Appeal of Online Poetry Classes
Despite the perception that poetic talent is inborn, examples illustrate that poetry classes for beginners are always workable, and they can achieve poetic skill with ample practice and able guidance. That is why we see the number of universities offering creative writing courses at the graduate and post-graduate levels increasing steadily.
Creative writing courses teach the craft of poetry, fiction, and other writing forms in an on-campus mode. That is the attraction of online poetry courses that can get you started on the right path if you are an aspiring poet or want to enhance poem writing skills to the next level.
Poets continue to receive respect, adulation, and recognition from society. Poets are also revered as cultural icons. That is why, centuries after passing away, famous poets like John Milton, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, and T.S Eliot continue to be discussed, read, and admired. Their works are taught in universities, and no generation grows without learning about them.
Poetry Writing Sustains Creativity
Despite the invasion of mass media and mass culture products, poetry still stays unique as a great medium for sharing thoughts, culture, ideas, and history. Poetry is a great cultural asset with benefits for its creator and readers. A good poem always accentuates the thirst for more reading and introduces you to the fascinating world of the musicality of words and phonemic sounds.
Learning the craft of poetry takes you to the core literary elements such as narrative structure, rhyming schemes in terms of sounds in words, and knowledge of word families and clusters.
Commercially too, poets are becoming successful; if your poetic voice is unique, who knows, you won’t script a success story like young Canadian poet Rupi Kaur has done. Here we have the best list of poetry classes for beginners, which are also appealing to poets at different levels of accomplishment. So pick your favorite online poetry course and kickstart your journey to be a poet who will be read and admired.
