Professor: Lizzy LeRud
4 credits
What role do poems play in issues of governance today? Who’s writing political poetry, who’s reading it, and why? What circumstances call for free verse, say, rather than a sonnet or a pantoum? What ways of thinking, expressing, exciting, inciting, and inspiring do these various kinds of texts facilitate? What texts are driving conversations in the field, shaping its future? What will happen next? In this course, we will explore questions like these as we study a selection of works published within the past decade by poets writing in English. We will ask both why poets engage politics and how political poetry works, exploring the circumstances that ignite—or are ignited by—poems. We will consider how poems make arguments not just through ideology and rhetoric but through strategies like sound, typography, and figurative language. Expect to read broadly in the field, exploring several collections in full, scoping the scene of poetry magazines and journals, and considering non-print poetries, too. We will look closely at specific poems and their contexts, using the tools of literary analysis to deepen our understanding. While assignments will emphasize analytical writing, there may also be opportunities for creative responses and craft exercises. Careful reading, extensive writing, and attentive participation are required for success in this class
Graduation Requirement: This class will fulfill an Arts and Letters Colloquium and US: Difference, Inequality, and Agency (US) cultural literacy requirement. If a student already has completed an Arts and Letters Colloquium, this course will fulfill both of the following requirements: an Elective Colloquium and the US: Difference, Inequality, and Agency (US) cultural literacy requirement.