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Course Description

Summary

This workshop-based creative writing course starts with the premise that every time we put a word down on a page or break a line at a particular point, we are making a choice of genuine consequence. The process of writing a poem is ultimately a sequence of these seemingly small choices and the particular arrangement of words and lines in our poems is more responsible for how the poems communicate than their ostensible subject matter or driving ideas. Thinking in language, we will turn in a new poem each week based on stylistic prompts triggered by our reading, and, as a group, will carefully consider the results of individual decisions made in our poems while experimenting with other possibilities and arrangements. We will also examine the singular aesthetic choices of multiple distinctive 20th and 21st century poets. Poets studied could include Lucie Brock-Broido, Jericho Brown, Jennifer Chang, Olena Kalytiak Davis, James Allen Hall, Shane McCrae, José Olivarez, Natalie Shapero, Evie Shockley, and Dean Young. At the end of term, students will write a critical introduction contextualizing their work and prepare a final portfolio of poems.