ENGL 2017: Introduction to Creative Writing: Poetry

This course provides an introduction to the techniques, insights, and pleasures of writing and reading poetry, and also seeks to expand our notions of what poetry is. We’ll explore key elements of the poetic art (persona, image, idiom, form, etc.) with examples drawn from a variety of traditions and sensibilities, reading both English-language poetry and works translated into English. This course will develop your skills in creative writing, poetic craft, and critical reading, focusing on what language says explicitly, what it suggests, and how it might be animated or made new through poetry. Poetry demands a form of attention not necessarily required by other types of writing. This course operates under the assumption that one must be a critical, attentive reader of poetry in order to become a better writer of it.