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In a letter to Thomas Higginson, Emily Dickinson used these words to describe poetry: “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” Marianne Moore described poetry in her poem by the same title as imaginary gardens with real toads in them. To get a sense of American poetry in our contemporary moment, we will explore four different ways of approaching contemporary poetry. In each class in this four-week course, we will focus our reading and discussion on poetry that is emblematic of contemporary lyricism; form and playfulness, explorations of language and how language goes about the work of meaning; and the spectrum of the personal and public. The course will sample a range of contemporary poets and feature a sequence of invitations to respond to course reading in various ways.
