CRW 4320 Spring 2022 Kirby

In A Few Good Voices in My Head, Ted Solotaroff says that a piece of writing is a writer’s “only way to organize and to some extent comprehend life’s fullness and perplexity.” In this class we’ll be studying and writing that kind of poem in a format that departs from the traditional workshop set-up. There’s nothing wrong with sitting in a circle and passing poems around and discussing them, but here we’ll mainly be studying craft in the first month and, after that, alternating between select students giving 20-minute readings of their work to the rest of the class and roundtable discussions of additional craft issues and particular poems presented by individual students. Expect to write a poem a week and, when you’re not sharing it with the class, sending it to the instructor. Expect as well to partner with someone with whom you’ll swap poems weekly and also exchange portfolios in the last week of class. The result? More fully realized and engaging poems. By the way, I call this class “The Solotaroff Protocol” because that sounds vaguely like a Cold War thriller involving a protagonist who (a) starts with a plan that (b) quickly goes awry even though (c) things work out in the end if (d) not in the way anyone thought they would. You know, the way poems do.

This course meets the Scholarship in Practice (s) requirement for Liberal Studies.

Note: The Instructor's permission is required for this course. Please fill out the application on the next page and send it to dkirby@fsu.edu.

Completion of this form is required for students seeking admission into the undergraduate poetry workshop with Professor Kirby.

Please submit your application at your earliest possible opportunity; applications will be reviewed as they come in and responded to as soon as possible. Name: ___________________________________ FSUSN: ____________________________ Major: ___________________________________ Expected Graduation Date: _____________ FSU E-Mail Address: ___________________ List all poetry writing classes you have taken, such as CRW 3311 (Poetic Technique) and CRW 4320 (Advanced Workshop). COURSE TERM INSTRUCTOR GRADE

Feel free to add below any other information that might be helpful. Attach a sample of four to five of your recent poems and e-mail this application to dkirby @fsu.edu. Thank you for your interest in this class.