This course offers an overview of poetry from the medieval
lyric to the present (with emphasis on poetry before the 20th
century). We will consider poetic forms
in relation to poetic content: what does the sonnet form do for a writer of
love poems or a poet more interested in the contrasts between rural and urban
areas? How can the sestina be used to
write about sheep herding and Popeye both?
How can a poet in Hawai`i respond to the canon that is the Norton
Anthology? The Norton will be our
primary text, with many divagations by way of the internet and the xerox
machine. While this course is a course
on reading poetry closely and over a wide span of literary history, students
will also be asked to indulge in the task of playing with words and forms.
The Norton Anthology of Poetry, Ferguson, Salter, et
al.
The Teachers and Writers Handbook of Forms, by Ron
Padgett
Sonnet 56,by Paul Hoover
13 Ways of Looking at TheBus, by Gizelle Gajelonia
Students will be required to contribute to a class blog, do
poetic exercises, and write two papers, one shorter and one longer.