ENGL 1805: Reading, Writing, and Blogging Poetry

Abstract

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES:¶

Teachers cannot create poets, but we can create the conditions for poetry to emerge. Like any art form, an important part of poetry involves understanding craft, though in an art as diverse as this one, precisely where the line lies between inspiration and craft—imagination and technique—is never entirely clear. This course in reading, writing, and writing about poetry starts with the basics, emphasizing prosody (the way poets use sound in language), sharp visceral imagery, and approaches to the poetic line (or lack thereof). Working with the belief that writers must first understand conventions before they can meaningfully oppose them, students will develop more sophisticated understandings of poetry’s tools, such as symbolism, metaphor, and rhyme, as well as more recent experimental techniques. We will read widely from the best and most representative poetry in the language, understanding that developments in our writing emerge from engaged reading. Because writing poetry helps you write more effectively in general, we will explore connections between poetry and other uses of language, such as tweets, blog posts, short speeches, advertising copy, and song lyrics.¶ In addition to writing and analyzing poetry, students will create blogs to share their work and comment on others' writing and media. The course will guide students through the process of posting and sharing work online, as well the best practices for using images, video, and audio to enhance online creations. Students will respond to other students' work via their blogs, and we will collectively establish an overall web site for Stern's creative writers to share their best work.¶ GOALS for the class include developing a better understanding of language as an artistic medium, coming to a fuller and more “interior” understanding of literature, developing the knowledge and skills for effectively using online resources, and producing work that students can look back upon, knowing it pushed their natural human potential for creativity.