Interdisciplinary Arts 0212 - Thinking Inside the Box: On Form

While I absolutely believe revision can be taught, and reading can be taught. Probably the only sound pedagogical tool for poetry is imitation. Writing can be introduced to people, but ultimately, only poems can teach poetry. Received forms such as sonnets, villanelles, sestinas, pantoums, and ghazals, can understandably appear difficult, daunting even, so, in this workshop, students will extensively read, examine, imitate, and workshop poems that adhere to as well as rethink common received poetic forms and conventions. How do formal poems negotiate the relationship between form and content? When is a particular formal constraint most appropriate? And when should a poet amend or alter a received form? My hope is that this class can be a nice warm greenhouse for new poems. Students may read and consider poems and prose by George Herbert, Julia Alvarez, Gerald Stern, Agha Shahid Ali, Ellen Bryant Voigt, and William Meredith, among many others. (keywords: poetry, creative writing, form, prosody)

This course includes both in-person and remote elements, but can accommodate fully remote students. Students in this course can expect to spend 6 to 8 hours weekly on work and preparation outside of class time.