Course Overview
This course introduces poets and creative writers to the world of Large Language Models (LLMs) and their potential in enhancing the writing process. Through a mix of foundational knowledge and hands-on exercises, participants will learn to leverage LLMs effectively and responsibly.
Course Content
Foundations and Understanding
Introduction to LLMs: A definition of large language models, key players (like ChatGPT and Claude), capabilities, limitations, and ethical considerations for poets.
LLMs in Creative Writing: Debunking misconceptions and exploring use cases in poetry, such as brainstorming themes, exploring forms, overcoming writer’s block, research, and revision assistance.
Best Practices: Prompt engineering basics, maintaining authenticity, privacy and cost considerations, and evaluating LLM outputs.
Hands-on Workshop
Getting Started Exercise: Setting up an LLM tool, basic prompting, and sharing initial experiences.
Practical Exercises
Brainstorming exercise: Generating imagery for a specific theme.
Form exploration: Using LLMs to understand and experiment with unfamiliar poetic forms.
Revision exercise: Learning to get constructive feedback on a poem.
Closing Discussion
Sharing results and insights, discussing pitfalls to avoid, and resources for further learning.
This course is designed to equip poets with the skills and knowledge to integrate LLMs into their creative process effectively.

Interested?
Ready to get to grips with large language models to improve your poetry? Register your interest using the form below.


Course Resources
LLM chatbots
Free versions of large language model chatbots to use. Either download the app or access through web browser. It is recommended that students have an account created on their preferred platform.
Course Prompts and Handouts
Prompts that students can use during the course. A quick user guide for poets seeking to use LLMs in their own writing, and a selection of poems to use in the course and for reference.


Further Understanding
Transformers Visually Explained
Breaking down how large language models work visually.
What is an LLM? Everything you need to know
An introduction into large language models.