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