English CCFC. Poetry Workshop: Form & Content

Instructor: Tracy K. Smith
Monday, 12:00-2:45pm | Location: TBD
Enrollment: Limited to 12 students
 

In this workshop, we’ll look closely at the craft-based choices poets make, and track the effects they have upon what we as readers are made to recognize, remember and feel. How can implementing similar strategies better prepare us to engage the questions making up our own poetic material?

We’ll also talk about something that, surprisingly enough, doesn’t always get a lot of air-time in the workshop: content. What can poetry reveal about the ways our interior selves are shaped by public realities like race, class, sexuality, injustice and more?  And what can vigilant attention to craft do to inform and enhance such considerations?

This course will proceed as part seminar, part workshop. We will devote roughly one-third to one-half of each session to the discussion of published poems, and the rest to the critique of student work. Beginning in Week 2, take-home writing exercises will be collected from all students.   
 

Supplemental Application Information: Please submit a writing sample of 5-10 poems and an application letter explaining your interest in this course.

Apply via Submittable (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, April 6)