LIT 2030 Fall 2023 Adesina

This course engages students in the art of understanding and analyzing poetry as a genre by looking closely and critically at the forms, themes, techniques, and devices in selected poems from a variety of historical periods.

A Poem is both song and story. A poem allows us to tell a story that is specific to our gaze and voice. In that way, a poem is an intimate history. In this class, we will examine compelling poems to see what we can glimpse of their brilliance and architecture. The class will be guided by a series of craft questions: how do you begin a poem? How do you end a poem? How do you tell your story in a poem? How do you sustain your voice in a poem? We will read and study works by Ocean Vuong, Ilya Kaminsky, Sylvia Plath, Leonard Cohen, and other brilliant poets and contemporary writers working now in our lifetime and the new ways they continue to make excellent art.