Fulfills Breadth Requirement: Focus (Genre). This course, while required for poets, is open to all and designed with prose writers and 20th century scholars in mind. Its basic question: how did we get from Modernism to here? The goal is to reach an understanding of the most up-to-date poetics by tracking developments in literature and aesthetics over the last century, focusing on American poetry. Particular attention will be paid to poets who worked outside of the accepted traditions in their moment, and shaped what would become the tradition for later generations.

Some things we'll look at: Russian Formalists, Gertrude Stein, Dada & antipoetry, Louis Zukofsky & the Objectivists, "Structures of Feeling," The Black Arts movement, Robert Duncan and Jack Spicer, John Ashbery, Michael Palmer and Lyn Hejinian. We'll also have readings and in-class visits from Charles Bernstein, poet and founding editor of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E magazine, and young poets Juliana Spahr and Jennifer Moxley.

This course is going to be a ride. The reading load will be sincere (first project: etymology of "sincere"). Writing assignments will include essays and poetry -- for everyone! Grading will be based entirely on "citizenship."

Texts (linked books are available from SPD)