FALL 2007 HONORS COURSES

HONR 278Y Poems That Matter: How Reading and Writing them can Transform Lives
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Dr. Kathleen Staudt, Senior Lecturer in University Honors

W.H. Auden writes, “Poetry makes nothing happen.” But Percy Bysshe Shelley said, “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” What if they’re both right? In this class we will read and reflect on poems that have lasted, both from centuries ago and from recent generations. We’ll attend to the craft of language in poems, and reflect on our own responses to poems we like and poems we don’t like. We’ll ask how poems can make us see the world in new ways, how they teach us to listen to the voices of others and to our own voices. We’ll look at connections between poetry, politics, spirituality, love, death, and the intricacies of human relationships. Writing assignments will invite students to reflect informally on their reading of poems, to try writing poems of their own, and to listen deeply to the language of poetry. We will read poems aloud and also memorize some poetry. Each student will do a final project on the work of one poet. At least one field trip to a local poetry reading will also be part of the course.

Texts:
Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook; Garrison Keilor, Good Poems
Instructor’s list of really good poems available on line, with links to academically reliable web resources on poetry

Critical readings from sources such as Harold Bloom’s, The Western Cannon; Adrienne Rich’s, What is Found There, recent columns in Poets and Writers and selected Ars Poetica poems to provide criteria for defining a good poem.

CORE–Literature [HL]