English 290 - Spring, 2018

Creative Writing: Special Topic

Topic: Poets' Prose

Class Information

Instructor: Glazner, Greg
Time: T 12:10-3:00
Location: 120 Voorhies
Breadth: Later American
Focus: Genre, Method

Description

Poets often produce powerful writing that may not be counted as poetry, a phenomenon that isn’t typically emphasized in workshops. Your writing for this one may be in lines, prose, or multi-genre combinations; the goal is to make use of the reading, class discussions, and workshop conversations in order to broaden and deepen your own writerly engagement with “the poetic.” We will read essays, fiction, prose poems, hybrid works, and multi-genre works produced by poets—and we will track the relationship of that work to their verse. Generally, I will provide PDFs and Internet links to a limited number of pages from one writer per week. Rainer Maria Rilke, Denis Johnson, Claudia Rankine, Lia Purpora, Arthur Sze, Dana Levin, Carl Phillips, and Mary Ruefle will be key; additionally, one week’s reading will cover a range of prose poems by diverse poets.

Grading

Grading will be based on attendance, participation in and engagement with the reading material and course concepts, quality of workshop comments, quality and reach of work submitted to the workshop, and the final portfolio.

Texts

Links and PDFs provided
Recommended titles to be posted , at my office