Interdisciplinary Arts 0149 - Poetry as Illumination

In this seminar, we will examine the way poetry captures, encapsulates, and elucidates different aspects of our existence, approaching poetry as an act of illumination, as Audre Lorde describes it: "for it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are, until the poem, nameless and formless-about to be birthed, but already felt." Through reading and discussion, we'll investigate the tools that poets use to communicate the ineffable. As we examine the work of a wide range of poets, we'll discuss how aspects like form, repetition, sound, silence, address, perspective and voice come together to light up different facets of life while building the world of the poem, and how the poem is able to build a world within its reader. Students will engage these methods as they build their own poems. Readings will include work by Javier Zamora, Claudia Rankine, Cornelius Eady, Solmaz Sharif and many more.

Culture, Humanities, and Languages Independent Work In this course, students are expected to spend at least six to eight hours a week of preparation and work outside of class time. This time includes reading, writing, research.