Interdisciplinary Arts 0172 - Topics in Craft: the Lyric Poem

Increasingly, it would seem to be the preference of readers in our neo-narrative age-age of biography and memoir, age of the talk show, the podcast, and TTRPG actual play-an appetite for story. Or narrative. Which also applies to poetry. Though, the lyric poet might just as easily argue that every narrative poem obscures a lyric, which itself slows or suspends time. What occurs when a poem is more concerned with "how something felt" than "what happened"? What use is the lyric in poetry? In this course, participants will investigate such questions-we'll consider the lyric poem more generally, and we'll acquire and develop the craft and technique that builds such poems. Participants will have the opportunity to workshop their own poems as well as the poems of their peers. Students may read work by Charles Wright, Donald Justice, Donika Kelly, Sandra Beasley, and Emily Dickinson, among others. Keywords:creative writing, poetry, lyric, workshop

Students should expect to spend 6-8 hours weekly on work and preparation outside of class time