Exploring Poetry Part II Sandy Soson Course

Exploring Poetry Part II Sandy Soson

Course Description: Wallace Stevens once wrote that poetry is a place where we “resist the pressure of the real, the incessant drumming of the news, of terrible events… Poetry preserves within ourselves the necessary space of imagination, possibility, humanity, love.” You are invited to come carve that space for yourself as you rediscover poetry. Do you find yourself drawn to the occasional poem you see published in a magazine but haven’t found the time to read more? Here’s your chance to re-engage with contemporary poets. We will continue the course from the fall, exploring different poets. Part I is not a prerequisite for this course.

Session 1 A brief talk about poetry to introduce the course. What is a poem? What can we get from poetry that we can’t get from other kinds of writing? Why do poems draw us, especially during big moments in our lives? What are ways to approach a poem? How can we best appreciate and enjoy poetry? We will look at the most famous American poem of the 20th century (by Robert Frost) to further explore some of these questions. We will then read and discuss several poems by our first poet, Tony Hoagland, a wonderful, witty contemporary poet. After we read each poem aloud, we will discuss its form, techniques and content, as well as its effect on the reader.

Each successive session will begin with participants who wish to share a poem with the class. Then we will proceed to the poet of the day, some of them recent U.S. Poet Laureates: I will give a brief introduction before we read and discuss several poems together, discovering some of the unique qualities of that poet.

Session 2: Natasha Trethewey