Poetry for Beginners Short Course

Oluwaseun Olayiwola

Oluwaseun (Seun) Olayiwola is a poet, critic, choreographer, and performer based in London. His debut poetry collection, Strange Beach, was published in 2025 by Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK) and Soft Skull Press (US). The book won an Eric Gregory Award and was a Poetry Book Society Winter 2025 Special Commendation. His poetry and criticism appear widely across UK and US literary contexts. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement, and his work has also been published in The Poetry Review, Poetry London, PN Review, Oxford Poetry, Granta, The Telegraph, Wasafiri, The Erotic Review, and The Georgia Review, among others. His critical writing frequently addresses contemporary poetry, performance, and the shared compositional concerns of literary and choreographic practice.

Alongside his writing practice, Olayiwola’s choreographic and performance work has been presented at the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Place, Studio Voltaire, and The Central School of Ballet. His practice moves fluidly between poem, performance, and score, treating choreography and poetry as interdependent forms of thinking, notation, and address. He is an inaugural member of the Rose Choreographic School at Sadler’s Wells East, and a Fulbright Scholar (2018–19). He holds an MFA in Choreography from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where he received the Highest Achievement Prize for his thesis In Search of Something Else: On Choreography and Poetry. He is currently a Lecturer in Dance at Kingston School of Art, teaching across choreography, writing, and critical practice, and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Olayiwola holds a UK Global Talent Visa, reflecting sustained international recognition for his contributions to literature and performance.