Types of CW (Poetry: Craft & Process)

This course will focus on the craft
of reading, writing, and discussing poetry. 
“Craft” refers to the “art of”, which ultimately means that there are a
variety of ways to look at the process of art-making, and specifically the art
of making poetry. Through critical engagement, writing exercises, and workshop,
you will develop a working vocabulary for the art of discussing and making
poetry.

We will be looking a variety of work
from writers that investigate the term “process”—writers who use both traditional
forms and language in innovative ways as an element of craft. This is a writing
intensive course. See below for requirements:

Class Requirements:

  • Weekly creative writing assignments
  • In-class creative writing exercises
  • Revision exercises (8-10 revised
    poems)
  • A presentation
  • A critical analysis paper
  • A final portfolio of your work.

Daily internet access is required
for this class, as we will be discussing web-based texts often. This class also
requires high energy, and therefore class participation weighs heavily on your
success in this course.


Materials (Required)

  • Daily Internet access – a good
    portion of our texts will be from an online anthology
  • Journal
  • A reliable thesaurus (in book form)

Books (Required)

(Note: All of these books might not make it to the list. The final list
is TBD)

  • Ted Berrigan’s  The
    Sonnets
  • Christian Bok’s Eunoia: The Upgraded Edition
  • Inger Christensen’s alphabet
  • Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric
  • Ronald Johnson’s Radi Os
  • Harryette Mullen’s Sleeping with the Dictionary
  • Jackson Mac Low’s 154 Forties


Books (Optional)

  • Handbook of Poetic Forms (edited by Ron
    Padget)
  • The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms (edited by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland)

All other materials will be given out in
class or accessed online