Adventures in Form and Chaos

This course is designed both for students who have
taken previous poetry writing classes and for
those who have not. It approaches the writing of
poems through an examination of the ways in which
some recent North American poets
(such as Hoa Nguyen, Douglas Kearney, Joshua
Beckman, CA Conrad, Eileen Myles and Terrance
Hayes) have renovated inherited poetic forms,
explored open-page forms, and invented new forms
along with new durational,
constraint-based, improvisational and performative
practices.
We will also look closely at the relation between
form and practice, asking ourselves at what point
a practice becomes a form of life. Students will
be given regular poetry writing assignments based
on our readings.
Class sessions will be divided between discussions
of our readings and peer review of student work.