Interdisciplinary Arts 0270 - Poetry and Political Imaginati

Three quotes mark the doorway of this course. "Poetry of the political imagination is a matter of both vision and language. Any progressive social change must be imagined first, and that vision must find its most eloquent possible expression to move from vision to reality. Any oppressive social condition, before it can change, must be named and condemned in words that persuade by stirring the emotions, awakening the senses. Thus the need for the political imagination." -Martin Espada, introduction of Poetry Like Bread "Writers are obliged, at some point, to realize that they are involved in a language which they must change." -James Baldwin, "On Language, Race, and the Black Writer" "...poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. "Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest external horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives." -Audre Lorde, Poetry is Not a Luxury In this course, we will study aspects of the relationship between poetry and the political landscapes of the 20th and 21st centuries. We will read essays, poems, letters, and manifestos by a wide assortment of artists including: Anna Akhmatova, Walt Whitman, Etheridge Knight, June Jordan, Gwendolyn Brooks, Mahmoud Darwish, Christian Campbell, Chris Abani, Kwame Dawes, and Evie Shockley. Over the course of the semester, class members will be expected to: write critical responses to texts; explore and articulate the musics, sounds, writings, languages that have influenced their own particular expressive modes; memorize and recite a poem; create a group blueprint and presentation that imagines a fresh way for poetry to intersect with public(s)/public space(s); participate in creative writing experiments and workshops that will help us to boldly articulate the projects of our poems while also exploring (enlivening!) our poetics and imaginations. Prerequisite: Eligible students should have taken at least one college-level workshop course (studio arts, film, writing, etc.).

Culture, Humanities, and Languages Independent Work Multiple Cultural Perspectives Writing and Research