Interdisciplinary Arts 0224 - The Interior Landscape: Intermediate Poetry Workshop

Hampshire's Professor Emerita of Psychoanalysis and Clinical Psychology, Annie G. 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." In recent times, the subject of mental health and wellness has become more openly discussed, though poets have embraced the subject for generations--an experience remains, to this day, almost "unsayable." This course will investigate how the poet grants a reader access to such complicated experience, their speaker's interior landscape, and how experience is then communicated--recreated--within the reader. Students will also deepen their understanding of the role Image plays in the effectiveness of such poems. Readings may include the work of Anne Carson, Elizabeth Bishop, Olena Kalytiak Davis, and Richard Siken, among others. Keywords: mental health, creative writing, poetry, performance, art

Time and Narrative Students should generally expect to spend 6-8 hours a week on work outside of class time.