Saturday, November 22nd, 10:00AM - 12:00PM
Meeting will take place in the Poetry Center's Alumni Room, Room 205; limit 12 students. General registration will open on Tuesday, August 19th at 10:00AM.
Poems need not end with an ascendant gesture to be as haunting and powerful as a poem that claims to affirm the human condition and assures us that we will rise above all of its circumstances. This class/lecture arises from a series of lectures on inspirational poetry, or what I call the Poetry of Agreements and literary poetry which I have sometimes referred to as the Poetry of Discomfort. Here, I will discuss where these types of poetries intersect but also where they differ in their aims. The almost insidiously persistent belief that a poem must hold an ascendant gesture keeps some poems that would hold awe, that would indeed meet the sublime, from doing so. Certainly, many incredible poems inspire, lift, raise, but there is so much else a poem can do. We will see what our own impulses are. Students can expect discussion on the course themes and to begin some in-class writing to be completed after the class ends.