ENG 221 - Introduction to Poetry Writing

Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR (students beginning prior to Fall 2024): Meet general academic requirement AR.
Meets Explore Core requirement (students beginning Fall 2024 and later): CE
In this introductory course students will learn to create, shape, and hone their own poetry, and in the process learn to savor the pleasure of poetry and interrogate how and why it affects us. The focus will be on the process of writing, including finding inspiration, experimentation with form and content, drafting, active de-familiarization, imaginative play, and the re-envisioning of one’s ideas. By studying the modus operandi of great writers, students will discover multiple ways of poetically expressing themselves. There will be weekly reading and writing assignments that focus on various aspects of poetic craft, such as imagery, figurative language, lineation, and rhythm. One goal of the course is to teach students to foster a writing practice: keeping a writer’s journal, engaging seriously with contemporary poetry, giving and receiving articulate peer feedback, and talking “shop” (i.e., about stylistic, technical, and philosophical considerations). This course will build up to and culminate in a final portfolio. Satisfies departmental Poetry requirement.