This course will introduce students to the reading and writing of poetry, with an emphasis on basic techniques and forms. We will explore both formal and free verse through reading and discussing poems from the tradition of English literature, from the Renaissance to the present. (Texts of the poems will be provided.) Each class will include a poetry workshop, in which students will have an opportunity to have their own poems discussed.

Week 1

The basics of poetry: metre, line, stanza, “musical” techniques (assonance, consonance, alliteration), rhyme. Poems by William Shakespeare, Wallace Stevens.

Week 2

The sonnet. Poems by John Keats, Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Berryman.

Week 3

The villanelle. Poems by Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop. Workshop for student sonnets.

Week 4

Free verse. Poems by William Carlos Williams, Sharon Thesen. Workshop for student villanelles.

Week 5

The prose poem. Poems by H.D., BW. Workshop for student free verse poems.

Week 6

The ghazal. Poems by John Thompson, Phyllis Webb. Workshop for student prose poems.

Week 7

The lyric essay. Poem by Anne Carson. Workshop for student ghazals.

Week 8

Poetry and music: song, song cycle, opera. “The Owl and the Pussycat” (Edward Lear/Stravinsky), Ten Blake Songs (William Blake/Ralph Vaughan Williams), excerpt from Doctor Atomic (John Donne/John Adams).

Reading and Writing Poetry