Fall 2024 Writing UN3365 section 001

21STC AM POETRY & ITS CONCERNS

21STC AM POETY & ITS CONCERNS

Call Number 15125
Day & Time
Location
M 6:10pm-8:00pm
401 Hamilton Hall
Points 3
Grading Mode Standard
Approvals Required None
Instructor Quincy Jones
Type SEMINAR
Method of Instruction In-Person
Course Description

The lyric has often been conceived of as timeless in its content and inwardly-directed in its mode of address, yet so many poems with lasting claim on our attention point unmistakably outward, addressing the particulars of their times.  This course will examine the ways in which an array of 21st poets have embraced, indicted, and anatomized their cultural and historical contexts, diagnosing society’s ailments, indulging in its obsessions, and sharing its concerns.  Engaging with such topics as race, class, war, death, trauma, feminism, pop culture and sexuality, how do poets adapt poetic form to provide meaningful and relevant insights without losing them to beauty, ambiguity, and music?  How is pop star Rihanna a vehicle for discussing feminism and isolation?  What does it mean to write about Black masculinity after Ferguson?  In a time when poetry’s cultural relevancy is continually debated in academia and in the media, how can today’s poets use their art to hold a mirror to modern living?  This class will explore how writers address present-day topics in light of their own subjectivity, how their works reflect larger cultural trends and currents, and how critics as well as poets themselves have reflected on poetry’s, and the poet’s, changing social role.  In studying how these writers complicate traditional notions of what poetry should and shouldn’t do, both in terms of content and of form, students will investigate their own writing practices, fortify their poetic voices, and create new works that engage directly and confidently with the world in which they are written.

Web Site Vergil
Department Writing
Enrollment 12 students (20 max) as of 9:05PM Friday, December 13, 2024
Subject Writing
Number UN3365
Section 001
Division Interfaculty
Fee $15 Creative Writing C
Section key 20243WRIT3365W001