AML3311 - Fall 2025 - Chakraborty

This course will focus on the major poets of twentieth-century and contemporary American literature, with special attention to form, voice, and the crises of subjectivity. Beginning with Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson as foundational figures, we will consider how later poets redefined literary traditions through experimentation, political engagement, and new modes of expression. From high modernism to contemporary innovations (performance poetry, found poetry, flarf, etc.), we will explore how poetry grapples with history, identity, and the power of language, in order to develop a deeper understanding of its evolving role in American literature and culture.

Poets studied may include: Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, H.D., Marianne Moore, Gertrude Stein, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Frank O’Hara, Amiri Baraka, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Joy Harjo, Claudia Rankine, Layli Long Soldier, Terrance Hayes, Ocean Vuong, etc.