"Poetry can extend the document," wrote Muriel Rukeyser. This literature and creative writing-based course considers the rich intersection of poetry, nonfiction, and hybrid creative writing called documentary poetry, which has blossomed over the past 20 years. Like documentary films, documentary poems make use of primary source materials such as interviews, news articles, diaries, letters, photographs, medical reports, and public records. The works we’ll consider “extend the document” by enriching our understanding of historical and current events – with context, with language, with performance, with design, with juxtaposition of other kinds of writing and visual material. In addition to reading a variety of documentary works, students will produce a documentary project of their own