ENGL3050: Introduction to Poetry (52226)

Jacobson, Miriam

TR 12:30 PM

Park Hall 0259


What is the relationship between a poem and the various material forms it takes? What makes a text a poem, an epic, sonnet, sonnet sequence, sestina, villanelle, a concrete poem? How do writers use poems to comment on society and culture? What power does a poem have that prose does not possess? What is poetry’s relationship to music? In 2017 Bob Dylan won the Nobel prize for literature. In 2018, Kendrick Lamaar won the Pullitzer for music. Is there a difference between a poem and a popular song, and if so, what is it? Who draws the line between spoken word and rap? And what does it mean to set a poem to music?

This course examines poetry composed in English in all its forms, through a variety of historical periods, paying particular attention to the relationship poetry has to its tangible, material shape (faded brown pen ink on rag paper, sticky printer's ink fibre paper, gold and lapis on vellum, cut strips of paper, embroidery on sampler, etc).  Although the syllabus is organized chronologically, you will soon discover that many historical periods like to challenge the rules of traditional forms and invent new ones.  Over the semester, we will read our way through Poems: A Concise Anthology, learning not only to understand poetic style, form, elements and diction, but how to interpret a poem, to imagine the impetus behind it, to connect it to its cultural milieu, and to think of it three dimensionally, as an object. Our assignments emphasize the inter-connectedness of reading, writing, and thinking.