Imaginative Writing: Poetry

Where does poetry come from? Where do we hear it, feel it, breathe it? How do we participate in its expression, its creation? What does it do to us?

Rita Dove said, “Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.” Emily Dickinson said, “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” Marianne Moore said that poems are “imaginary gardens with real toads in them.”

What do we need for us to engage in the writing, making, singing, and creating of poetry? How might you dwell in the possibility of poetry? What body electrics do you have it in you to sing? What voices live inside you?

Andrea Gibson said, “I am whatever I am when I am it.” How might you grow outward into the world? Lucille Clifton discovered that the earth “is a black shambling bear / ruffling its wild back and tossing / mountains into the sea.”

This course is an invitation to immerse yourself in the language of being: poetry. All are welcome to join us. No previous experience is required. We will explore what it means to breathe, to live as creatures of rhythm, to delight in pattern, to illuminate images and moments, to sing, and to let words trip the light fantastic along our tongues. We will read ancient and contemporary poetry, listen to poetry, discuss poetry, cook poetry, eat poetry, make poetry, speak poetry, walk poetry, and discover poetry in strange and ordinary places in our lives. Be prepared to experiment, take risks, work hard, ask lots of questions, and write and write and write.

Books: Sarah Kay, NO MATTER THE WRECKAGE; Ocean Vuong, NIGHT SKY WITH EXIT WOUNDS

Credit will be awarded based on faithful attendance, completion of weekly poems, writing exercises, and reflection essays, and a final poetry portfolio of at least ten poems; active participation in class discussions, group work, class activities, and a final poetry reading.