LIT 5038 - FALL 2026 - KIMBRELL

What does it mean to see a poet whole? How do later volumes change the way we see the earlier work? What images, questions, and/or obsessions sustain a poet over time and how do they evolve over the course of an entire “career”? Is a poetic career itself a formal structure (early apprenticeship, mid-career expansion, later style, self-curation), and in what ways do these collections confirm or resist that structure? In this course we will read three recent collected works: The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010, Louise Glück's Poems 1962-2012 (along with the two volumes that followed, Faithful and Virtuous Night and Winter Recipes from the Collective), and Larry Levis's Swirl & Vortex: Collected Poems. We will also read critical essays and reviews relevant to these books.