AXE HANDLES: READING POETRY TO WRITE POETRY

Course Description

Axe Handles: Reading Poetry to Write Poetry

In the main, this course is a workshop, meaning you'll present your own poetry to the class to receive careful attention. You'll also read widely. Lu Chi in his famous Ars Poetica says, "When cutting an axe handle with an axe, surely the model is at hand." Heeding this wisdom we will approach the poems in our books as our axe handles, our models to emulate. You'll turn in a portfolio of 15 poems at the quarter's end.

Required Text

Merwin, W.S. The Essential W.S. Merwin Copper Canyon Press
Heaney, Seamus and Hughes, Ted The Rattle Bag Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Bass, Ellen The Human Line Copper Canyon Press