Outdoor Poetry

Course Description

This workshop class will focus on writing poetry outside (with some time spent in the classroom). 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 use the poems in our books as our axe handles, our models to emulate. You'll turn in a portfolio of 12 poems at the quarter's end.

In the cherry blossom's shade
there's no such thing
as a stranger.

-- Issa

Required Text

Rexroth, K. In the Sierra: Mountain Writings, New Directions

Schelling, A. Love and the Turning Seasons: India's Poetry of Spiritual & Erotic Longing, Counterpoint

Lentz, J. E. A Naturalist's Guide to the Santa Barbara Region, Heyday