ENCW 214 - Finding the Thread: Contemporary Poetry Projects

CR: 3
Over the past 15 years, contemporary poetry has witnessed a radical expansion in the number of so-called “project” books: books that depend on the recurrence of specific speakers, lyrical spaces, and/or thematic content. This course will examine how several contemporary “project” books generate their unique governing structures, and how readers encounter poems individually and as parts of the elaborate worlds they construct. Students will study and practice the poetic forms that undergird recent poetic experiments; identify and articulate how newly published project books function in relation to our cultural moment; and create a small poetry project of their own. Course will include analytical and creative assignments.