American Poetry:
Reading/Writing/Teaching
How can we beguile secondary students into caring about the great poets of American culture? How can we teach poetry in a way that helps young readers/writers understand the aesthetic qualities and especially the demands of the genre? How can we get students to see the act of writing poetry in the ways that masters of the craft see it? This course addresses these questions through close study of several American poets who often figure in the secondary curriculum (Emily Dickinson, E. E. Cummings, Billy Collins) as well as some contemporary poets who may be new to course participants, and teachable in high school. We will associate poetry with other art forms—music, painting, architecture, sculpture. The course concludes with a week-long poetry-writing workshop.
TEXTS (AVAILABLE AT UI BOOKSTORE)
The Poems of Emily Dickinson (Reading Edition),
ed R.W. Franklin (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2005) ISBN: 0674018249
E. E. Cummings Selected Poems, ed Richard S. Kennedy (New York: Liveright,
1994) ISBN: 0871401541
Sailing Alone Around the Room, Billy Collins (New York: Random, 2001)
ISBN: 0375755195
LINKS
SCHEDULE
DICKINSON
ELECTRONIC ARCHIVES
DICKINSON BIBLIOGRAPHY
ASPECTS OF POETIC STYLE
POETRY OUT
LOUD
POETRY
180