Poetry Appreciation Workshop With Poet Rochelle Dsilva

The Poetry Appreciation Workshop is a two-day course for anyone who wants to engage with poetry. The workshop is designed to make poetry more accessible – to understand how to analyse a poem, how to articulate your own feelings and thoughts into a poem, and to help you find your own poetic voice. Starting from the elements that make up a poem, to the different types of poems, poetic devices, and poetic tools. We will move on to reading and learning to analyse and break down poems in order to understand them better.

By the end of the workshop, participants will:

• Develop a deeper appreciation for poetry across different styles and forms.
• Learn how to approach and read a poem without feeling intimidated by it.
• Explore the relationship between language, imagery, feelings and meaning.
• Identify poetic devices such as metaphor, simile, imagery, repetition, rhythm and
• personification.
• Understand how form and structure influence the experience of a poem.
• Explore different ways of interpreting the same poem.
• Develop confidence in discussing and responding to poetry.
• Experiment with writing using different prompts.
• Discover their own poetic voice and give words to their emotions.

Eligibility

• Open to anyone aged 16 and above.
• No previous experience of reading or writing poetry is required.
• The workshop is suitable for: beginners who are curious about poetry; students and young adults; writers and aspiring poets; regular poetry readers; and people interested in literature, language, and creative expression.
• Anyone who wants to develop a more personal relationship with poetry.

Participants do not need to consider themselves writers to attend.

Rochelle Dsilva is a poet based in Goa. She writes about her travels, cultural influences, and personal experiences. Her poems give voice to feelings of displacement, love and loss. She started writing poetry at 6 years old and started performing in 2011. Since then, she has performed on numerous stages across India, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Nepal.

She has been a part of a multitude of literary festivals: Serendipity Arts Festival 2024, Goa Open Arts Festival 2024/2019, Times Lit Fest 2018, Goa Art and Lit Fest 2018, Melbourne Spoken Word and Poetry Festival 2018, Kala Ghoda Art and Literature Festival 2018, to name a few. In 2016, she represented the Indian writing community during a poetry tour in Nepal called Words Express – Spoken Word Jatra, featuring international poets from Pakistan, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and the universally proclaimed Spoken Word Artist – Sarah Kay.

Rochelle has three spoken word albums (Road Trips to New Places, A Thin Veneer of Coping and Best Apology Face) and her solo collection of poems, When Home Is An Idea, has been widely appreciated as a conduit to talk about identity and belonging.

She is the founder of The Poetry Retreat, a 6-day poetry residency conducted in South Goa.

She conducts workshops and creates curricula for poetry writing and appreciation. Goa is her favourite muse. Rochelle is also a trained mental health counsellor and uses poetry as a tool for expression and healing. She endorses hugs.

Apply Now