The Joy of Scansion: how to know the dancer from the dance — with Don Paterson
Sat 29 Nov
|Webinar
As poets, do we fall into line with the metre, or do we stand up to it? What does it mean to ‘scan a line’ anyway? In this class, Don Paterson will look at the art of reading and understanding a poem through its pulse.
Time & Location
29 Nov 2025, 11:00 – 13:00 GMT
Webinar
About the event
This class is the first of a series of three webinars with Don Paterson. You can purchase a ticket to an individual webinar, or you can book the a ticket for all three at a reduced price. Please purchase the three-webinar ticket from the 3-in-1 button below this first event.
As poets, do we fall into line with the metre, or do we stand up to it? What does it mean to ‘scan a line’? What’s the difference between prosody and ‘scansion’? Can you scan ‘free verse’? In this class, Don Paterson will explore these questions and many more, as we look at the art of reading a poem through its pulse. He’ll argue that scansion is how we justify our performance of a poem — and that every performance is, at its heart, an act of interpretation: to ‘scan’ is to understand how rhythm and stress become sense. Drawing…
Tickets
General Admission
£35.00
+£0.88 ticket service fee
Concession
If you can’t afford the full workshop/webinar fee, just pay the concessionary rate. If you can afford the full fee, please pay it, as it will allow us to offer completely free places in the future.
£25.00
+£0.63 ticket service fee
3-in-1
This class is the first of a series of three webinars. You can purchase a ticket to an individual webinar, or you can book the a ticket for all three at a reduced price.
From £60.00 to £90.00
£90.00
+£2.25 ticket service fee
£60.00
+£1.50 ticket service fee
Total
£0.00