Courses

In this course, we will explore techniques that poets have evolved to distract themselves from their inner critics so their writing can be less like work and more like play—absorbing, manageable, and full of surprise—even when it involves serious subjects and ugly feelings. We will practice writing techniques adapted from improv comedy, discover what Beyoncé’s melodies can teach us about the repetitions of the sonnet, and experience how concrete nouns can keep a poem moving. We will keep notebooks to net materials for poetry from our own daily lives and experiment with adapting material from genres not typically thought of as poetic (such as advertisements, advice columns, instruction manuals, and course descriptions). Each class session will have two parts: in the first part, we’ll look closely at poems published by others, and in the second part, we’ll talk about poems you have made. Each week, you will write a new poem in reply to a prompt emerging from our conversations. You will leave the course with a portfolio of new work, a new community of peers, and a renewed sense of how to play and why.