This is a creative writing course inspired by writers, artists, scientists and naturalists who have taken the sea for their subject. All comers are welcome. No experience in creative writing is presumed; a wide range of experience is anticipated.

How do you get from sea to seascape? Consider paint, verse, field note, and mathematics: do marine representations in each of these modes have anything in common? What are their various intents and purposes, their respective ways and means? Specifically, how does nerve by language nudge the world and come away with an impression? Our conversation will draw courage from large questions like these and others we may wish to bring to the table; meanwhile, our principal considerations will be practical, taken from the writer’s rather than the critic’s or philosopher’s standpoint. We’ll posit a general taxonomy of the arts of prose and poetry, and test its elements at the point of a pencil. We’ll adapt our methods from field science, whose acolytes comb beaches and other niches, and also from studio art, whose apprentices set up their easels in museums, copying type specimens. Our specimens will be extracted from the literatures of the sea. Our practice will favor outward-tending gesture over inward-gazing self-expression and polish. Writing will be constant and joyful.

Prerequisites:

ENGL 383, 384