CRW 3311 Spring 2018 Minor

This course will focus on all the wonders, components, and mechanisms of poetry, and how certain game-changers have shaped literary history. We will read, analyze, and craft poetry on a regular basis. Our text will be The Poet’s Companion, as well as various packets of specially selected poems provided by me (and maybe a couple of short critical essays). We will be reading a wide range of traditional and contemporary poems. We will talk about what poems do for humanity. We will confront our poetry fears, and have open, constructive discussions on how we can (like these standout game-changers) "make it new." You don't have to understand or have a background in poetry, and if this is your first time writing a poem, we will celebrate your courage. After completing this course, you will be able to encounter any poem and engage with it critically no matter its subject or form. By understanding how poetry is crafted, you will begin to discover how to create this type of power in your own writing.

• “What you have to realize when you write poetry, or if you love poetry, is that poetry is just naturally the greatest ... thing that ever was in the whole universe.” ― James Dickey
• "If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry." ― Emily Dickinson
• "... dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.” ― Walt Whitman