Course Description:
Though often described in terms of schools or movements, contemporary American poets embrace a range of influences and practices difficult to grasp through anthology exposure alone. Structured around whole books of poems rather than anthology selections, Recent American Poetry will be, among other things, a course in slow, attentive reading. Throughout the semester we will consider our own responses to the texts: what does it feel like to inhabit a text by Rae Armantrout, or Alice Notely, or Larry Levis? After a brief overview of some elements of postwar poetry, we will move quickly into the present, reading and responding to an eclectic group of poetic texts written in the U.S. in the past 30 years. While we will learn about critical groupings such as the New York School, Conceptual poetry, and L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, our focus will be on the way individual poets engage questions about language, the self, and the world.
About the Blog:
As a way of both tracking and extending our ongoing in-class conversations, I will moderate a blog devoted to this class. Over the course of the semester, each student will be required to contribute at least six posts and six responses to the class blog, which all students will be required to read each week before discussion on Monday. You will write blog posts on every other text that we read, according to the schedule on the syllabus. On the weeks during which you are not writing for the blog, you will write at least one comment before class discussion on Monday. Required blog posts should respond to readings or continue class discussions about readings, and should include quotations from the text(s) to which they respond. Comments should refer to particular points made in the original entry. Writing for the blog need not be formal in tone, but it should be written and proofread carefully. Entries and comments will be graded for their originality, clarity, style and level of detail. You will not be graded per individual log entry, but will be given a midterm and final blog grade, and a separate midterm and final comment grade. Blog entries should be 500 words, minimum. Responses should be 200 words, minimum.
