A Month of Meter

Wednesdays: Oct 7, 14, 21, 28 & Nov 4, 2026

12:00–2:00 pm ET (9–11am PT, 5–7pm UK)

Live on Zoom · Limited to 12 places · Every session recorded

(Please Note: The 28 October session is 4–6pm UK. UK clocks go back the previous weekend, US clocks don’t.)

Meter is the most fundamental tool in poetry.

Older than rhyme, more primal even than metaphor, it has been in Western poetry from the beginning.

But few people writing poetry today feel confident about what meter is, or how to identify it—let alone how to use it. The terminology alone puts most people off before they ever reach the ideas.

That's a shame, and not only for poets who want to write sonnets and villanelles. Meter is how a poet learns rhythm, and rhythm is what makes a poem sound like a poem, rather than prose in short lines.

A Month of Meter will give you the grounding you need to make meter—and rhythm—work for you.

If you write free verse, this course is especially for you

I write free verse too. But I began by writing only metrical verse for years, and I’m very glad I did. It gave me an ear—for lively rhythms, for rhythms that need help, and for how to make a poem that dances.

Knowing meter gives you control over your free verse:

• · Spot flat lines and know how to fix them by adding or removing stresses.

• · Notice accidental meters so you can decide whether to keep the pattern or break it.

As a teacher, I see many free verse poems where the writer hasn't yet learned how to move their rhythms away from prose. This course is designed to help you do exactly that.

Over 5 weeks, you will:

• ·Learn to find and identify meter, so you can see how other poets have used it and learn from them

• Write your own poems and exercises in meter, which is the only way to get to know it deeply

• Get weekly feedback from me so you know you’re getting it right

• Practice using the different meters to create different moods and effects

• Vary your meter to keep it flexible and fresh, rather than mechanical or sing-song

• Apply meter to traditional forms —like blank verse, the sonnet, terza rima

• Use metrical thinking to energize your free verse

The five sessions

1. Stressed and Unstressed Syllables(7 October) Where everything starts. Finding stress in single words, then in sentences, then in lines of poetry—and writing exercises that put that awareness to work.

2. Iambic Verse(14 October) The core of English poetry. We define the iambic foot and the main iambic meters, look at examples from classic and contemporary poets, and you write your first lines of iambic verse.

3. Other Meters(21 October) Anapests and trochees in depth, with writing practice in each, plus a first look at dactyls, spondees, and pyrrhics. Every foot has its own movement and its own feel.

4. Varying the Meter(28 October) The difference between meter that sounds alive and meter that sounds like a metronome. How poets bend the pattern on purpose, and how to do it yourself—including writing dialogue in iambic that still sounds like speech, and working in traditional forms like blank verse and terza rima.

5. Freeing Meter(4 November). Applying the lessons of rhythm to free verse: assessing and adjusting the stresses in a line to make it springier, livelier, and less like prose. Also using different rhythms in free verse to evoke different moods.

This course is:

• Accessible. We start by finding the stress in ordinary words and build from there, step by step. No prior knowledge of meter or poetic terminology is assumed, and the pace is gentle. This subject has a reputation for being forbidding. It isn't, when it's taught properly.

• Practical. Every session is a workshop rather than a lecture, with writing, discussion, and pair work each week. You'll leave each class having written something of your own.

• Supported. Short homework between sessions, around 30–45 minutes, with a selection reviewed live each week so the common questions get answered. Every participant also sends me eight lines of their own metrical verse each week, and I tell you what's working and what isn't. There's also an optional study-buddy scheme, if you'd like a partner to practice with between sessions.

• Flexible. Places are limited to 12 to make time for everyone’s work. Every session is recorded and shared, so if you have to miss one you won't lose the content, and you can bring your questions to the next live class. Payment can be split into two equal installments.

Two ways to join

1. A Month of Meter: Standard — $449 All ten hours of live teaching, full handouts, every recording, weekly homework with a selection reviewed live, and weekly feedback from me on eight lines of your own metrical writing.

2. A Month of Meter: Masterclass — $599 Everything above, plus a private 30-minute 1-on-1 coaching session to workshop 3 of your poems and refine their rhythmic movement. Only three Masterclass places are available.