Interdisciplinary Arts 0188 - Thinking inside the Box: On Form

Reading can be taught. Revision can be taught. Though perhaps the only sound pedagogical tool for poetry is imitation. Writing can be introduced to people, but ultimately, only poems can teach poetry. Received poetic 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 or reimagine, common (or niche) received poetic forms and conventions. In what ways do formal poems negotiate the relationship between form and content? When does a particular formal constraint best enact its subject matter? 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, form, writing, tradition

Students are expected to spend a minimum of 6-8 hours of work outside of class time per week