Seeking greater aesthetic, emotional, and political freedom, poets often innovate the relationship between the poem and the page. What is gained when the poetic text moves in other dimensions? What does it mean to perform our many selves in the act of writing? What can we understand about the word through the scene or the stage? This Reading for Writers seminar will look at texts that enable us to think about the modes in which our writing can sound. While our focus will be on close-reading, analyzing, and writing “poetry” as such, we will also look at creative examples of cinema, drama, and contemporary digital artwork to explore this expanded sense of the poetic text. During the semester, students will be required to attend a few poetry performances and complete a final performance project of some kind, in consultation with the instructor. Texts will include: Amiri Baraka, Alvin Lucier, Bertolt Brecht, Gertrude Stein, Charles Reznikoff, Kamau Brathwaithe, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Ntozake Shange, Langston Hughes, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Fred Moten, Tytti Heikkinen, John Wieners, Wanda Coleman, and more.

READING FOR WRITERS: Poetry and Collaboration. In this Reading for Writers seminar we will focus on the visual, spoken, and sonic qualities of poetic texts. We will focus on close-reading, analyzing, and writing “poetry” as an expanding and collaborative form; we will find inspiration in poets who, in seeking to disrupt the enabling metaphors of the status quo, enter into collaboration with artists and musicians. We will work to expand, disrupt, and often challenge the relationship between image and text, reader and writer, audience and performer. What happens when a poetic composition moves into other dimensions? What does it mean to perform our many selves in the act of writing or making? What can we understand about language when we experience it as sonic or visual landscape? We will also look at creative examples of cinema and contemporary art to explore this expanded sense of the poetic text. During the semester, students will be required to attend a few sonic poetry performances. Aside from close reading and critical/creative responses, students will complete a final performance project of some kind, in consultation with the instructor. Texts/compositions will include: Janice Lowe, Cecilia Vicuña, Ana Mendieta, Edwin Torres, Amiri Baraka, Andrew Whiteman, Antoin Artaud, Kamau Brathwaithe, M. NourbeSe Philip, The Last Poets, Maya Deren, Langston Hughes, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Fred Moten, Renee Gladman, Layli Long Soldier, and more.