Department of English

We often think of poetry and memoir as those forms of writing which capture
the, voice of their authors through expressing one's innermost feelings.
This course works to first explain, and then reverse that model: we will
learn to write creatively from the outside in. We will read the work of
modern and contemporary writers who write poetry and memoir out of
materials that exist outside of the self (including mathematical equations,
court testimony, movies, newspaper articles, and Google searches). Students
will explore individual and group writing experiments that employ collage
techniques, methods of random generation, and new media technologies as a
part of our active investigation of how poets and memoirists are
discovering and enacting new relationships between writing and
self-expression. These alternative ways of thinking about language, and
subject matter will help us situate our writing acts in relation to our
selves as we call attention to, and challenge, the continued consignment of
one voice to one author and individualized writing practices. At semester's
end, students will turn in a final portfolio including poetry and prose
pieces, and a letter which will serve as a critical introduction to the
work.