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When do we sense a departure or an arrival in a poem? What thresholds – physical, metaphorical, or natural – do we cross? In this workshop, we will spend time thinking about thresholds, boundaries, and borders, exploring when we encounter points of transition in a poem's subject and form. Alongside discussion and writing exercises, we will read a variety of work including the Jason Allen-Paisant poem after which this workshop is named, and poems by Bhanu Kapil and Hannah Lavery. There will be time to share work during the session and any pre-reading materials will be sent in advance.

Alycia Pirmohamed is the author of the poetry collection Another Way to Split Water. Her other works include Hinge, Faces that Fled the Wind, and the collaborative work, Second Memory, which was co-authored by Pratyusha. Her nonfiction debut A Beautiful and Vital Place won the 2023 Nan Shepherd Prize for nature writing and is forthcoming with Canongate. Alycia currently teaches on the Creative Writing master’s at the University of Cambridge. She is the co-founder of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network and a co-organiser of the Ledbury Poetry Critics, and she is the recipient of several awards including a Pushcart Prize, the CBC Poetry Prize, and the 2020 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award.