Weekend Writing Retreat (All Levels / Emerging)
With facilitators Salena Godden & Safiya Kamaria.
Salena Godden is an award-winning novelist, poet and broadcaster of mixed Jamaican-Irish heritage. Her highly-acclaimed debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death was published by Canongate in lockdown in 2021. It won the Indie Book Awards for Fiction and the People’s Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards and the Gordon Burn Prize. A hardback edition of Pessimism is for Lightweights - 30 pieces of courage and resistance was published by Rough Trade Books in 2023. The title poem is on permanent display at The Peoples History Museum in Manchester. A new full poetry collection With Love, Grief and Fury and literary childhood memoir Springfield Road - A Poets Childhood Revisited were published together with Canongate in May 2024. Salena Godden is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Patron of Hastings Book Festival and an Honorary Fellow of West Dean, Sussex.
Safiya Kamaria is recognised as a choreopoet and ethnochoreologist. As an award-winning spoken word artist, she is known for her inventive live-literature performances. In 2020, Safiya received The New Voice in Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for both the Out-Spoken Page Poetry Prize and the Creative Future Writer’s Award. Through her research project ‘Tracing The Dance’, she reimagined dance notation for the Black diaspora, created a technique blending movement with poetic form, and established a new anthropological methodology that uses Black dance techniques to excavate narratives throughout Black communities in the Americas. Her first poetry collection, Cane, Corn & Gully (2022), was inspired by the movements of enslaved Barbadian women and went on to be shortlisted for the 2023 Rathbones Folio Prize and Felix Dennis Forward Prize for best first collection. A copy of this collection is housed at the National Museum of Barbados, and it also won the 2023 Barbados’ ‘Gine On’ People’s Choice Awards for best book. Among her published works are contributions to journals including POETRY, Callaloo, Wasafiri, Poetry London, and The Caribbean Writer. Safiya is the first alumna of the Obsidian Foundation.
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DATE: Friday 6th - Sunday 8th November 2026*
LOCATION: Barley Wood House, Wrington, Bristol BS40 5SA
PRICE: £250-£300 (includes tutoring, meals and accommodation)**
AIMED AT: All Levels / Emerging poets (see description below)
APPLICATIONS CLOSE: Sunday 31st May 2026 (9pm)
*Participants can arrive from 16:00 on Friday, and the retreat ends at 16:00 on Sunday.
**Price depends on the room you select (large room w/desk / ensuite charged at £300, smaller rooms at £250). A small number of bursary spaces and travel bursaries are also available. See Terms and Conditions & Application Form.
DESCRIPTION:
This retreat is aimed at emerging+ poets looking for a weekend to refresh, meet other creatives, create new work, enjoy world-class tutoring and continue building career skills in writing and performance.
The lead facilitators for this course are two award-winning poets, published writers and innovative UK performers, Salena Godden and Safiya Kamaria. Participants will be supported by the friendly and experienced Raise the Bar team.
Focusing on various skills as a writer and a creative practitioner, this retreat will help you build confidence and skills to map out new artistic/career pathways, whilst learning new writing techniques and engaging in lively conversations to develop your voice and style. The retreat includes a 1-1 tutoring session with one of the facilitators, and a fireside open mic where all attendees can share their work.
Raise the Bar’s retreats offer a warm, welcoming and family atmosphere. Full vegan, sustainable catering is included for the duration of your stay. Outside of your tutored sessions, you will have plenty of time to read, write, socialise and explore the 11 acres of landscaped gardens and woods in the former home of poet Hannah More.
Aimed at poets of all kinds, including those working primarily in writing or in performance.
Post-emerging writers are also welcome to apply for this course but should be aware that all exercises will be suitable for less experienced poets.
KEY INFORMATION:
These retreats are open to anyone over the age of 18, with priority given to applicants living in South West England, both at the time of application and throughout the duration of the course/retreat applied for. This area is defined as consisting of the counties of Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly), Dorset, Devon, Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Candidates living outside this area are very welcome to apply but will initially be added to a reserve list. If we can't fill spaces from eligible candidates in the South West, we will offer spaces to suitable applicants on the reserve list.
These courses are not designed for complete beginners and experience of writing poetry is required for all applications. There is no cast-iron definition of emerging and post-emerging poets, but the following lists may be useful in helping you pick course that most accurately matches your level of experience.
An all levels / emerging poet:
Will have less than 3 years experience as a writer/performer
Will usually be active mainly in their local area, and be seeking to expand their profile
May regularly attend poetry workshops and courses, or perform unpaid at open mics or slam competitions
May have minimal experience of being published in journals/magazines/competition.
May have a pamphlet or debut book of poems published
May have some experience performing paid support slots at poetry events
Will consider poetry to be more than just a hobby, seeking opportunities to develop their creative practice or professional skills
A post-emerging / mid-career poet:
Will have more than 3 years experience as a writer/performer, in a part-time capacity or as part of their profession
Will usually make regular income from poetry-related work
May have significant experience of being published in journals/magazines/competitions
May have at least one full-length poetry collection, album or body of work
May have significant experience headlining events and being paid for their work, including outside of their town/city/region
May have performed, or been published, internationally
May be paid to judge competitions or sit on panels
May be paid to edit or mentor other poets’ work
May have work commissioned by organisations on a semi-regular basis
Will still be seeking to further their professional skills in order to become a more established poet with a full-time, or majority of their, income coming from writing/poetry-related work (including teaching, producing and facilitating)