Reading For Writers: Documentary Poetics will explore the generative and intertextual possibilities of using poetry to document a moment in history, at both the micro and macro levels. How can documentation as an active process help us understand political moments, our political and historical selves, the personal psychologies and pathologies that drive us as writers? Students will locate themselves as readers and writers in the collision between first-person experience and socio-historical reality, working to better understand the efficacy of documentary process as both 1) a mode for poetic inquiry and 2) a methodology for the poet’s construction of new creative work. Students should be prepared to consider non-poetry texts, as well as published works that incorporate hybrid forms and vocabularies, ranging from transcripts, found-language text, historical imagery and documents, photography, and many others. Via a hearty reading list of poetry and experimental texts, we will consider how craft-driven and contextually aware reading practices may help us better achieve the effects we wish to see in our own writing. Weekly creative activities, exercises, and poetry prompts will compliment ongoing literary analysis responses culminating in a final paper of students’ own design. Works by Layli Long Soldier, Maggie Nelson, Mark Nowak, Claudia Rankine, Philip Metres, and Don Mee Choi, among many others, will be considered. This course fulfills the Reading for Writers requirement.

Reading For Writers: Documentary Poetics will explore the generative and intertextual possibilities of using poetry to document a moment in history, at both the micro and macro levels. How can documentation as an active process help us understand political moments, our political and historical selves, the personal psychologies and pathologies that drive us as writers? Students will locate themselves as readers and writers in the collision between first-person experience and socio-historical reality, working to better understand the efficacy of documentary process as both 1) a mode for poetic inquiry and 2) a methodology for the poet’s construction of new creative work. Students should be prepared to consider non-poetry texts, as well as published works that incorporate hybrid forms and vocabularies, ranging from transcripts, found-language text, historical imagery and documents, photography, and many others. Via a hearty reading list of poetry and experimental texts, we will consider how craft-driven and contextually aware reading practices may help us better achieve the effects we wish to see in our own writing. Weekly creative activities, exercises, and poetry prompts will compliment ongoing literary analysis responses culminating in a final paper of students’ own design. Works by Layli Long Soldier, Maggie Nelson, Mark Nowak, Claudia Rankine, Philip Metres, and Don Mee Choi, among many others, will be considered. This course fulfills the Reading for Writers requirement.

RFW Poetry: Form(s) and Formlessness. This Reading for Writers seminar will explore collections of contemporary poetry that center form and formal innovation, process, methodology, visual rhetorics, and conceptual elements. All poems have form, but not all poems agitate known and named forms in order to create something truly uncategorizable, often using unexpected raw materials to construct the poem itself. How do contemporary poets use formal experimentation to disrupt (and dialogue with) historical narratives, cultural norms, and the politics of their day? How does form emote in poetry, and what can be learn from poets for whom form and feeling are inextricable? Through close-reading, craft discussion, critical response, creative writing exercises and play, students will immerse themselves in wild, restless, visual work that challenges how we read poetry and any preconceptions about the politeness of the genre. Together we’ll sharpen our skills as confident “form-forward” readers of poetry, as well as writers over the course of the semester. Students should be prepared to lead occasional discussions, share their original poetry and contribute to the classroom environment, write a midterm close-reading paper, and produce a final critical or creative self-designed project. Some poets we will consider include, but are not limited to, Amber Atiya, Bhanu Khapil, Don Mee Choi, Diane Di Prima, CA Conrad, Layli Long Soldier, Robin Coste Lewis, and many more.