CSP 20 Exploring Experimental Poetry

While poetry often gets framed as a path for individual expression, poetry has proven especially effective for questioning the terms of cultural belonging, political agency, and collective memory. This CSP will examine poets from several different cultural traditions. Poetic form is constantly changing along with our rapidly changing world, in order to address the gaps and contradictions that narrative cannot always fill. For that reason, this course is interested in the centrality of experiment to poetic creation.

Close readings of poetry from Phillis Wheatley, Derek Walcott, Solmaz Shariff, Marlene Nourbese Philip, Philip Metres, and Kevin Young will provide test cases for improving our skills in writing thesis-driven, researched based argumentative essays.