emagazine Poems of the Decade Student Conference, 2026 (London, Autumn 2026)
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Date - 09 Dec 2026 (UK)
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Availability -
Places available
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Price - £25 per student
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Location - Friends House, London
Programme and Speakers
10:25
Welcome – Andrew McCallum introduces the conference.
10.30-11:05
Patience Agbabi reads and discusses her poem ‘Eat Me’ before taking student questions.
11.10 -11.50
Dai George: Uncertainties, mysteries, doubts: what is Negative Capability, and how can it help you read a poem?
This talk will introduce you to one of the great concepts in modern poetics and give you the confidence to embrace ambiguity when reading poems. The idea of ‘Negative Capability’ first bubbles up in an 1817 letter from the poet John Keats to his brothers Tom and George. Broadly speaking, it is the quality of ‘being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason’, and for Keats it was the essential feature of poetic thinking. Building on the ideas in his book How to Think Like a Poet (Bloomsbury, 2024), Dai George will explore a selection of anthology poems with Keats’s great theory in mind. The talk will consider how these poems use imagery, reference, plot and form to create mysterious but vital experiences for the reader. It will model how to live with a poem through successive readings, and allow one’s initial uncertainty, or resistance, to blossom into something richer and more developed, and – who knows? – perhaps even something that will help you to answer exam questions.
The talk will range across the anthology, though the following is an indicative list of the poems it will focus on:
- Julia Copus, ‘An Easy Passage’
- Tishani Doshi, ‘The Deliverer’
- Ian Duhig, ‘The Lammas Hireling’
- Seamus Heaney, ‘Out of the Bag’.
11.50-12.20 BREAK
12.20-13:00
Simon Armitage reads and discusses his poem ‘Chainsaw Versus the Pampas Grass’ and Vicki Feaver's 'The Gun' before taking student questions.
13:00-14:00 LUNCH
14.00-14:10
emag co-editor Barbara Bleiman briefly introduces students to the emagazine website.
14:15-14:50
Sinéad Morrissey reads and discusses her poem ‘Genetics’ before taking student questions.
14:55-15:30
Daljit Nagra reads and discusses ‘Look We Have Coming to Dover!’ before taking student questions.
15:30
Conference ends
Getting to the Conference
Train
- The closest train stations are Euston, London St Pancras and Kings Cross.
Tube (underground)
- Tube stations within a 5 to 15-minute walk include: Euston, Euston Square, Kings Cross, Goodge Street, Russell Square, Tottenham Court Road and Warren Street. The closest tubes are Euston and Euston Square.
Bus
- Numbers 10, 18, 30, 73, 205 and 390 pass the door whilst 59, 68, 91, 168, and 253 stop nearby.
Travelling by Minibus or Car?
- Friends House is within a meter parking zone. Charges must be paid Monday to Friday 08:30 -18:30. Please note that Friends House is within the congestion charge zone. For details of how to pay here.
Coaches
- Coaches may stop outside Friends House to drop students off.
Parking
- There is no on-site parking available at Friends House. The local roads have metered parking bays and fall within TfL charging zones. TFL driving information is available on the TFL website. There are three disabled blue badge parking bays located in Endsleigh Gardens.Information about Camden Council parking is available on the Council's website.
Risk Assessment
We are unable to provide a risk assessment for your students, but are very happy to answer any questions you might have about the venue which would help you in completing your own risk assessment.
Arrangements on the Day
Registration
Registration will open at 9.30am and we ask you to be in your seats for 10am so we can begin promptly at 10.25am.
Entrance is via the Euston Road entrance to Friends House.
Teachers Accompanying Students
We expect all students to be accompanied by a teacher. There should be a minimum of 1 teacher per 20 students.
We request that teachers meet their students in advance, register as a group and sit with their groups of students. Teachers are responsible for ensuring that their own students maintain acceptable standards of behaviour in the auditorium and in the Friends House building.
Lunch and Refreshments
The cafe at Friends House is open from 8am.
You and your students will be responsible for providing your own lunches. There are sandwich shops in the area immediately behind Friends House and plenty of food outlets across the road at Euston Station.
There are spaces outside for students to eat their packed lunch but no indoor spaces.
Risk Assessment
We are unable to provide a risk assessment for your students, but are very happy to answer any questions you might have about the venue which would help you in completing your own risk assessment.
Andrew McCallum
Andrew McCallum is Director of the English and Media Centre. Prior to that he ran a PGCE course in secondary English, and previously he taught for 15 years in London schools, spending most of that time at Acland Burghley School in Camden. He holds a doctorate in education, is author of Creativity and Learning in Secondary English (Routledge) and writes regularly for NATE's Teaching English magazine. If asked to name the EMC publication he's most proud of having worked on, it would be a three-way contest between Iridescent Adolescent, Diverse Shorts and Write On.
Patience Agbabi
Patience Agbabi FRSL is a dynamic poet, novelist and Fellow in Creative Writing. Her work is internationally acclaimed, and she has delivered writing workshops for 30 years, from primary to PhD. She has published four poetry collections and four middle-grade novels. Her latest work is The Past Master (Canongate, 2024).
Dai George
Dai George is a Lecturer in Creative Arts and Humanities at UCL. He is the author of How to Think Like a Poet (Bloomsbury, 2024) and two volumes of poetry, The Claims Office (Seren, 2013) and Karaoke King (Seren, 2021).
Barbara Bleiman (Student Conference)
Barbara Bleiman is an Education Consultant at EMC and co-editor of emagazine. She has written numerous articles, blogs and chapters in books about English teaching, including a book, What Matters in English Teaching, published by EMC in April 2020. She was the recipient of the NATE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching of English (2019) She is also a fiction writer, with two published novels. Her collection of short stories, Kremlinology of Kisses, appeared in October 2020.
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Simon Armitage
Poet Laureate Simon Armitage was born and grew up in West Yorkshire. He is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry and the PEN Prize for Translation. He has published over a dozen poetry collections, including Magnetic Field: the Marsden Poems, and acclaimed medieval translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Owl and the Nightingale. His new book Blossomise was an instant Sunday Times bestseller.
Photo credit: Paul Stuart Photography
Sinéad Morrissey
Sinéad Morrissey is the author of six books of poetry and a memoir, Among Communists (2026). Her numerous awards include the Irish Times Poetry Prize, the T S Eliot Prize and the Forward Prize. She has served as Belfast Poet Laureate and in 2020 was named the European Poet of Freedom by the City of Gdansk, Poland. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University. A new poetry collection, In All Our Clothes, is forthcoming from Carcanet in 2027.
Daljit Nagra
Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University, Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, Daljit’s four poetry collections have won the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem and Best First Book, the South Bank Show Decibel Award and the Cholmondeley Award. The inaugural Poet-in-Residence for Radio 4 & 4 Extra, he presents the weekly Poetry Extra.
ON SALE 10AM FRIDAY 9TH OCTOBER. SEE BOOKING DETAILS FOR HOW TO BOOK.
Prices
- The fee is £25 per student, with one free teacher place as follows: 1-9 students = 1 free teacher place; 10-19 students = 2 free teacher places and so on.
- You will be automatically allocated the correct number of teacher places and will need to provide details for each teacher attending. (You can change the teachers attending, if necessary, when you tell us final numbers on xxxx.)
- For additional teachers, or teachers attending without students, for their own interest or CPD, the charge is £50 each.
Booking the conference – important information
- Before booking, please see our updated cancellation policy.
- We are unable to take provisional bookings or reserve places. Conference places will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
- To book this conference you must be signed into a UK Educator Admin (purchasing) or UK Trust/Academy – Head Office (purchasing). Trust/MAT head offices: please see 'Special information for Trusts' below.
- Bookings can only be made online. It is no longer possible to pay in full for conference places by debit or credit card via the website at the time of booking.
- Overseas schools and individuals interested in attending the conference, please email us.
How to book
- Sign in to a UK Educator Admin (purchasing) or UK Trust/Academy – Head Office (purchasing) account.
- Add the number of student places you need. Free teacher places will be allocated automatically. There is a limit of 60 places per organisation.
- Confirm you have read and agree to the updated terms & conditions.
- Add the names and contact details of the teachers attending – if you don't know these details yet, just copy/paste the details of the lead teacher.
- Checkout within 24 minutes. Otherwise the booking will expire and you will have to begin the process again.
- Click submit and then Go to basket.
- 'Places exceeded' message? Reasons for this message are:
- You are trying to order more than 60 places (including free teacher places)
- Due to the number of places in other customers’ baskets, there are currently insufficient places available to fulfil this order. Try again later.
- Checkout.
- Once you have booked your place, you will see a screen indicating your order has been successful. Please make a note of your order number.
- The person making the booking and all the teachers attending will also receive an automatic acknowledgement of your booking.
- A non-refundable deposit invoice of 20% of the booking value will be emailed to you within 24 hours of booking. It must be paid by debit or credit card within 7 days of receipt. Failure to pay this invoice will result in the cancellation of the booking.
- Please do not make final travel arrangements until you have paid your deposit invoice.
Special information For Trusts
- Are you a Trust finance officer looking to book conference places for more than one of your schools?
- Please note: the limit of 60 places per organisation applies to the organisation booking the places.
- If you require more than 60 places in total, you will need to do one of the following.
Option 1 (recommended)
Finance officers or heads of English register a UK Educator Admin (purchasing) account to the school and place the order. At billing they will have the option to enter the name and email address of the finance officer at the Trust. The address on the invoice will be that of the school.
Option 2
Finance officers at the Trust head office register separate UK Educator Admin (purchasing) accounts to each school requiring places. They place each order when logged into the individual school account. A different email will be required for each registration.
Deposit
- A 20% non-refundable deposit will be applied to all places booked. If you cancel a place you will lose the 20% deposit paid. You will not be able to use the 20% deposit paid on cancelled places towards the final invoice.
- You will receive a non-refundable deposit invoice of 20% of the booking value, to be paid by credit card within 7 days of receipt. The payment can ONLY be paid via the Stripe link sent with the deposit invoice, not by making a payment directly via our website. Failure to pay this invoice will result in the cancellation of the booking.
- The balance invoice will be sent on 25th November, after the deadline for confirming final numbers. Places booked after the final numbers' date will be liable for 100% of the cost of places booked.
Cancellations and Amendments
- The 20% deposit on places booked is non-refundable. Please note: you will not be able to use the 20% deposit paid on cancelled places towards the final invoice.
- You can make amendments to your booking until the final numbers deadline – 5pm on Monday 23rd November. You will lose the 20% deposit paid on places cancelled by this deadline.
- You will be invoiced for the balance of the total fee (80%) on confirmed places. Please note: you will not be able to use the 20% deposit paid on cancelled places towards this final invoice.
- After this date you will be charged 100% of the ticket price, regardless of the numbers of students you bring to the conference.
- We will email on 19th November to remind you to confirm your final numbers.
- Places booked after the final numbers' date will be liable for 100% of the cost of places booked.
- The balance invoice will be sent on 25th November, after the deadline for confirming final numbers. It will come from [email protected] Further correspondence related to payment will come from [email protected]
Please note: We will be unable to make refunds in the case of weather, transport difficulties or circumstances beyond our control. Should EMC need to cancel the conference, a full refund will be on offer. (However, personal arrangements including travel, accommodation or hospitality relating to the conference which have been arranged by you or your institution are at your own risk and not refundable by us.)
Waiting list
- We are no longer operating a waiting list for student conferences.
- If places become available, we will re-open the bookings on the website. We will publicise this via social media and our general mailing list.
Red weather warning
- In the event of a red weather warning, we will follow official advice about travel and cancel the event if it is deemed inadvisable to go ahead. In such circumstances, we will be unable to offer a refund.