ENGL 200-01, Introduction to Poetry, Fall 2011

Abstract

Designed to be an introduction to the arts of reading, analyzing, & writing poetry, this class will place poetry in the larger context of creative writing & the still larger context of writing & of language, itself. The emphasis of this particular class will move between poetic knowledge, correspondence, genealogy, & subjectivity. Among our lines of inquiry will be questions such as: what is a poem? How & where do we encounter poems? Why do we write them? To what do they correspond in the world at large? What does it mean to be an artist “of one’s time”? How does language come to mean & what happens when meaning is transformed, translated, or transported? Along the way, students will be introduced to forms & prosody as well as to the primary modes of poetry & the currently accepted elements of poems with an emphasis on metaphor & image, rhythm & music, & performance. Students will develop a vocabulary for discussing & analyzing poems. Furthermore, students will gain practice in generating & revising their own poems & in critiquing peer poems. Students will be introduced to “the Workshop” in its various uses. This course is intended to have students read, write, & analyze as much poetry as is possible in our brief semester together. Inundation is key. The majority of writing will generate from reading & from exercises & techniques plied in class & further honed in weekly assignments.