All I can say, Max, is that here’s someone in the US offering a course on ‘modern poetry’ who seems to know nothing of the most interesting (at least to me) USAmerican poetry of the 20th century, beginning with Pound & Williams, & ongoing…(probably doesn’t know Briggflats either).
Doug
On Nov 5, 2014, at 1:45 PM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Earlier I was looking online for a course I might sign up for.
>
> All I found was this - note number 3 - train poem.
> .
> (Where poets are named and not which poems, I wonder what Ms Soltan has chosen…)
>
> Poetry: What It Is, and How to Understand It
> George Washington University
> with Margaret Soltan
> Why read a poem? Why write one?
>
> People say modern poetry as an art form is imperiled in our time, yet everywhere in the world cultures and individuals memorize, recite, and value various forms of poetry.
>
> This course will attempt to define this genre of poetry writing, to discuss its particular attributes, to distinguish between good and bad poetry, to explain why so much writing poetry is difficult, and to isolate the sorts of truths modern poetry seems best at conveying.
>
> Our focus will be on modern poetry, in English and in translation.
>
> Syllabus
> 1. Course Introduction
>
> 2. Poetry and the Arrest of Life
>
> 3. Richard Burton reads 'Adlestrop' by Edward Thomas (1878-1917)
>
> 4. Poetry and Difficulty
>
> 5. Distinguishing Between Good and Bad Poetry
>
> 6. The Poet on Poetry
>
> 7. "Sunday Morning," Wallace Stevens
>
> 8. "The Graveyard by the Sea," Paul Valéry.
>
> 9. "The Moon and the Yew Tree", Sylvia Plath.
>
> 10. "At the Fishhouses," Elizabeth Bishop.
>
> 11. Philip Larkin and W.H. Auden.
>
> 12. What are they trying to tell us?
>
> 13. Conclusion, Part One: Poetry: What It Is, And How to Understand It
>
> 14. James Merrill's "Santorini: Stopping the Leak." A Poem of Therapeutic Arrestation
>
> 15. Love, and the Arrest of Life
>
> 16. Charles Wright's Black Zodiac
>
> 17. STOPPING THE LEAK: T.S. Eliot's Poem, "Virginia"
>
> 18. Poetry and the way it undermines us: Weldon Kees and Donald Justice Part I
>
> 19. Poetry and the way it undermines us: Weldon Kees and Donald Justice Part 2
>
Douglas Barbour
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Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
that we are only
as we find out we are
Charles Olson
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