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American Poetry: Modern and Contemporary

ENGL 088.001
instructor(s):
MW 2-3:30 (Arts Cafe KWH)

English 88 offers an introduction to the unprecedented range of poetry and poetics that emerged during the twentieth century in the United States. We'll read the best known "canonical" poets of the modernist period, such as Eliot, Frost, Pound, Williams, and Stevens; some more formally radical and experimental poets, such as Stein, H.D, Loy, Riding, and the Objectivists; the political and social poetry of the 1930s; native American poetry; some blues and tin pan alley, the poets of the Harlem Renaissance and its legacies; as well as a wide range of postwar poetry, from the Beats, San Francisco Renaissance, Black Mountain, New York School, & L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, and on to contemporary poetry on and off the page, near and at the edge. Extensive use will be made of sound files of the poets readings their poems. English 88 is a discussion-based course, with much supplemental material available on our website. The course requirement consists of a weekly journal response to the readings and a creative/interactive experiment on one or more of the assigned poems (such as imitating, rewriting, performing, or reordering the poem). No previous experience with poetry required.

fulfills requirements