CRW 5331 Spring 2018 Kimbrell

What is a poem? What is a book of poems? This workshop will serve a two-fold purpose consistent with its twice weekly meeting schedule. Monday of each week will be reserved for workshopping individual poems submitted in advance by workshop participants. Wednesdays will be reserved for workshopping book-length or chapbook (ten poems or more) manuscripts submitted in advance by class members. We will consider, therefore, poetry on both a microscopic and macroscopic scale, and will seek the organizing motifs, narratives, obsessions, and revelations that elevate a poem (as a collection of words) and a book (as a collection of poems) to a sum much greater than its constituent parts. Accordingly, we will have frequent cause for turning to myth-weaver par excellence, Ovid. It is recommended that all workshop participants read the Metamorphosis prior to the beginning of our first workshop. We will also consider, formally and informally, recent and canonical debut volumes of poetry.

Metamorphosis / Ovid. Trans. Charles Martin. Bernard Knox, Intro. W.W. Norton and Co. 2005 ISBN-10: 039332642X. ISBN-13: 978-0393326420