Interdisciplinary Arts 0254 - The Interior Landscape

Psychologist Annie P. Rogers asserts, "Every sentence we speak is continually surrounded by what is not said and may in fact be unsayable... However, to hear the unsayable I had to consider words as revealing both a conscious narrative about experience and an unconscious one," and while mental health and wellness have become a more openly discussed subject, the experience remains almost unsayable. So, how does the poet grant a reader access to such complicated experience, the speaker's interior landscape? How is it communicated-recreated-within the reader? In this workshop, students will study poems on the subject of mental health and illness as well as deepen their understanding of the role image plays in the effect of those poems. Readings may include the work of Anne Carson, Elizabeth Bishop, Galway Kinnell, Olena Kalytiak Davis, Sylvia Plath, Jane Kenyon, and Richard Siken, among others. Prerequisite: At least one prior creative writing workshop.

Multiple Cultural Perspectives In this course, students are expected to spend six to eight hours a week of preparation and work outside of class time.