Join Dr. James Brunton this summer online during the three-week presession for ENGL 253: Intro to Poetry Writing. This course will introduce you to: 1) the art of making poems and 2) the theories that have shaped how we make, and talk about, poetry. No previous poetry writing experience is required. We will think about poetry as words to be spoken and heard, as visual objects to be seen and touched, as sounds to be made and felt, as intersubjective experience to be shared, as pedagogy, as politics, as play, and as performance. We will ask and seek answers to questions such as what gets to count as a “poem”? what can a poem do? what should a poem do? why make poems? and weigh our own answers against those given by theorists and critics of poetry, literature, and aesthetics. You will produce poems, read and respond to each other’s work, and practice a variety of techniques for experimenting with words. Graded work for the class includes independent poetry-making activities, workshops, and short responses to assigned poems and readings. We will foreground work by poets and theorists in the LGBTQ+ community and BIPOC poets and theorists.
ENGL 253 fulfills ACE 7 and also counts in the English major and minor.