This six-week course will explore the creative process and the nature and value of metaphor. Each gathering will focus on a lyric poet from classical Greece to today. We'll look at works by Sappho, Catullus, Petrarch, John Donne, Leonard Cohen, and Pablo Neruda. Your instructor, John Edwards, will supply his own translations. This course is for readers and writers alike. Participants are invited, but not required, to compose short poems in the evolving styles of the lyric tradition for the enjoyment and appreciation of the class.

John Edwards studied classics at Oxford and art at Victoria College. He is the author of over 2,000 poems and many books of translation, and he has been Poet Laureate of Ladysmith since 2018. His newest book of poetry is available locally: A Farm For All Seasons.