Poetry Writing: Transcribing from the Invisible (Online Course)

(EGL 103 W)

Where do poems come from? We know the major sources—memory, landscape, love, dreams—but in every memorable poem there is something unexplainable, that difficult-to-define element that reminds us how marvelous and strange our everyday lives are. In this course we will explore the mystery created in poems by John Keats, Adrienne Rich, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, Charles Wright, and Sylvia Plath, among others. And, more importantly, we will investigate how these mysteries are created. We will examine what aspects of craft (imagery, syntax, metaphor, tone) these poets employ, and to what effect. Then we will turn to our own work and try our hand at these poetic techniques by writing new poems every week. Through group discussion, peer workshop, and individualized comments from the instructor, we will ride the exciting line between skillfully controlling language in each sentence, line, and word, and courting the unexpected.

Please note: This is an online course.
For more information on additional online courses, please visit http://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/onlinewriting/.

Andrew Grace, Former Stegner Fellow

Andrew Grace's forthcoming second book of poems, Shadeland, won the 2008 Ohio State University Press/ The Journal Award in Poetry. He has received the Southern Poetry Review’s Guy Owen Prize and an Academy of American Poets Prize. His work has appeared in Poetry, Boston Review, TriQuarterly, Ninth Letter, Indiana Review, and Hayden's Ferry Review, among others. His first book, A Belonging Field, was published by Salt Publishing in 2002.