COURSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES
This course is an introduction to looking at, listening to, thinking with, and writing about poems. We'll start with poems as objects handed out on cards, penciled in scrapbooks, printed in newspapers, inscribed on walls, bound into books, or streaming across computer screens. In addition to patterned words in a visual field, however, poems are also sounds that move through the air in chants, slogans, songs, conversations, or community-making speech. As documents that shape and are shaped by their moment in time, finally, poems record history, take stands, and, in the long- or short-term, make things happen. As the course progresses, we'll move from the smallest poetic units--bits of sound, scraps of form--to the large structures of long poems and poem collections. To end the course, students will assemble an anthology of poetic documents in a form that conveys the poems' shape, energy, and synergy to others in the class.
Our aims are to read widely and deeply in modern American poetry, develop a vocabulary and a range of strategies for talking about poems, and think about the cultural work that poetry can do. The questions we will explore include the following: What are poems, how do they function, and what difference do they make? Why write a poem rather than give a speech or make a film? What is the relationship between poetry and music? How do poems speak to racial, sexual, socio-economic, and national differences? On what grounds can we judge a poem to be successful or unsuccessful, efficient, and/or effective?
KEY TO THE HOTLINKS IN THE CLICKSTRIP
Syllabus:
This overview of the course includes a list of required books and bookmarks, a reading schedule,
and due dates for writing assignments. In order to respond to questions and concerns that develop in our discussions, the syllabus may shift as we move through the semester. Bookmark it and consult it to verify the specific reading and writing assignments for each class.
Assignments: This page contains specifications
for written, oral, and posting assignments, a description of the midterm and final examinations,
a statement on grading policies, and a list of collegiate and departmental
procedures.
Resources: This page contains a compendium of useful sites for clarifying
poetic terms, locating biographical and/or critical material, writing papers, and, later in the semester, compiling
anthologies. It includes a set of websites you'll want to bookmark and consult, as well as a roster of anthologies on reserve for consultation for the final assignment in the course.
Discussion: This password protected page is a place to try out theories, ask questions, make hypotheses, recommend poems, and exchange information. We will also use it to post paragraphs on readings for class.
MAPS
Site: This is the website that accompanies
the Modern American Poetry anthology. It is hotlinked into the syllabus in many assignments during the semester, but you will also want to use it to explore
historical, critical, and photographic materials related to each of our readings.