Hello Friends ... here's the last newsletter of term. As 2014 tips into 2015, we've rounded up our favourite poetic experiences of the old year, and are looking ahead to those to come in the new. Read, heard or seen something great this year? Add it to our lists!
 Christmas Opening Hours
The Poetry School office shuts at 5pm on Friday 19 December and opens again at 10am on Friday 2 January. The online booking system will still operate over the holidays, and CAMPUS, our online home, will tick along too. If you have any specific booking or CAMPUS queries during the Christmas period, we'll get on to them first thing in the new year.
 Invitation to the Spring Term Launch Reading
 Looking Forward to Spring ...
Launch parties notwithstanding, January can be a gloomy old month. The tree lights are down and there's no more Quality Street left. Luckily, the new Poetry School term starts at the end of January so there are still plenty of high points and bright spots to look forward to. We've got dozens of new courses and workshops available, all of them designed to give time and space to your work. Study the European avant-garde with S J Fowler, Routes into Poetry with Tamar Yoseloff or everything in between - and your new poems will pop up like snowdrops. Browse all the details of the new term here - and if Christmas has put a hole in your spending plans, we are still welcoming applications for bursaries to support the cost of activities.
Best Books of the Year
The Guardian does it, the LRB and the TLS do it ... and so do we. We've kept a list of all the poetry collections, anthologies and pamphlets we've enjoyed over 2014 and rounded them up for you to agree with or argue over here.
Best Gigs of the Year
Neither the inkies nor the glossies do this one though : a list of the best poetry gigs of the year. Between us all in the office, we've managed a good few hundred readings, launches and events and we've been keeping a log. Here are our favourites - what would you add to the list?
Introducing Claudia ...
Finally, we'd like to introduce you to Claudia Winter, our new marketing and administration assistant. A growing organisation needs a larger staff, so we're delighted to welcome Claudia - with her Apples and Snakes and Poetry Society experience - to the team. Between them, Jo and Claudia will now be sorting out all your booking enquiries cheerfully and effectively into 2015 and beyond.
Meanwhile, we'd like to wish you all a Happy Christmas and a peaceful new year. Thank you for all your support in 2014, and wishing you a poetry-filled 2015!
Ollie, Julia, Will, Jo, Maryam and Claudia
Our Bursary Scheme helps people take part in Poetry School courses when times are tight. It's part-funded by generous student donations - details of how you can contribute to it are here.
Messages and Whispers: news from other organisations
• T S Eliot Prize Preview Event and Readings at Southbank Centre, 11/1
• Get your nominations in for the Ted Hughes Prize for new work in poetry, deadline 7/ 1
• Dylan Thomas & Catilin Macnamara photographic exhibition at the Poetry Cafe
• Wordsworth Trust new programme
• Kei Miller reads at Buckingham Palace, 12/2
• Ballymaloe Poetry Prize, deadline 31/12
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