This course proposes to read poems formally: that is, grouped by style rather than by country or age; bodily: we'll pass them through our throats and hands, not merely beneath our eyes; and critically: as in "art critic" i.e. with scrutiny, and as in "critical condition" as though it matters.

We'll paint quickly and with a broad brush, touching the greatest writers in the Western poetic tradition, from figures both major and minor, some of whose work you'll no doubt have encountered, but most of which will be new.
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Attempting to understand this business of poetry, we'll consider the art and its creators from several angles: in addition to the work itself, we'll read letters, criticism, manifestoes, and reviews in order to understand not only what this work means, but what it has meant. To readers in generations past, poetry was not only the queen of the arts, but the very aqua vitae. Our job will be to taste and to develop taste: "to divine" in the old sense: sourcing and mapping poetic springs.

What understanding we manage to form, what inroads to make, will be codified in written responses of the following type and manner. 1) a reading journal featuring informal weekly responses to the work, which will be revised at quarter's end into formal critical engagements. 2) a keepsake book, wherein we'll hand-copy the full text of certain poems as a way to see better the lineation and mechanics of the work. 3) a poetry explication: this is a specific skill through which a writer demonstrates tonal/imagistic/and metrical mastery of a given piece. 4) a free-form essay that demonstrates a unique (or at least personal) interpretive position regarding the art or artist with whose work you find particular resonance.