Did you know some doctors prescribe poetry to their patients? Can you guess which 2020 U.S. presidential candidate employed a poet as Director of Strategic Communications? In Living Poets/Living Poetry, we will energize and redefine our engagement with this active, urgent art form. We will learn how poets around the world rely on poetry to build community, to spotlight truth and record alternative histories, to run aesthetic experiments, to establish human connections, and to express joy. Built upon sustained, direct interactions with a selection of living poets from the US and abroad, this course will consider not only contemporary poetrys relationship to arts traditions but also its role in personal and cultural self-definition and its intersections with music, politics, justice, even healthcare.After studying each course poets work in sequence, along with work from stated and likely influences, we will prepare to host the poet for an in-class discussion. Each unit will culminate in a project relevant to the given poets work: popular and critical reviews, readers guides, creative translation exercises, and comparative studies between different poets and/or across genre (e.g., how various poets engage love or loss, how a certain theme is rendered in poetry vs. graphic memoir or sculpture). A panel with members of the Dark Noise collective and a shared open mic with poets from the Nakivale refugee settlement will introduce us to poetry as a means of not only personal reflection but also creative collaboration. No experience necessary. All are welcome.
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