COML 1134

FWS: Reading Poetry

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2021-2022.

Poems are puzzles, or are they plants? In this class, you'll learn to read with poetry as a fellow writer. You'll respond to key questions like "How does this poem work?" or "Why do I like it?" Poems are often thought of as infinite in the possibilities of perception and wonder they produce. Together we will grapple with the paradox of writing about poetry in a closed, concise form without domesticating it, by investigating how reading poetry can teach us how to write anew. How are lines and stanzas related to sentences and paragraphs? Can ideas "rhyme?" Are notions such as deixis, voice, metaphor, apostrophe, prosody, and the "lyric I" essential to producing a cogent and truthful argument in any discipline? In addition to poems and essays by poets, this course may include relevant literary theory, scientific texts, musical works, and extracts from novels or films.

When Offered Fall, Spring.

Satisfies Requirement First-Year Writing Seminar.

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