This course will help students contextualize linguistically adventurous poetry in relation to other media, like image and sound. Documents are all kinds of meaningful texts, visual, written and oral. Writers will aim to complete a chapbook and to develop a writer’s diary in the form of a literary-critical blog. The course will explore how poets solve technical and ethical problems. Other issues include form (traditional genres, and as an open process of construction), voice and register, affect, and creative paraphrase. Of great interest are issues of translation, and use of non-standard Englishes. Readings will include a large proportion of Australian (including Indigenous) and Pacific poetries. These issues will be discussed and explored through reading critical essays on poetics and workshopping poems.
Students will explore their own writing practices through workshops and creative exercises. The course will focus on developing students’ understanding and awareness of what makes a successful poem. Exploration and reading of a wide range of poems will give students the experience and confidence to expand and develop their writing and critiquing skills. The course moves on from the basics of line, image, prosody and sound to poetic forms including the sonnet, elegy, ode, dramatic monologue, and the ekphrastic poem.