Department of English

In this class we will consider what occurs when a writer uses the first-person pronoun – the “I” or the “me”—to tell stories that begin with the self but travel elsewhere, as the self always does in person or in the imagination or memory.  As a course on both poetry and nonfiction, we will consider the focus on formal attentions that poetry can bring to articulations of self as well as the perhaps more direct -- we will question this -- of prose. What can exploration in one form or another, in poem or prose, reveal to the writer and reader? What can we do with language in both modes? Who exactly is talking when the “I” comes to town?  We will hone our skills as writers, as readers, and as generous editors of each other’s writing in workshop.