ENGL3183

Why wait to read today’s poets until they’re dead? Instapoets and Tik Tok poets are bringing poems to everyone, including people with no experience reading and analyzing poetry. Due to the compressed brevity of a poem, it’s an art form that excels in a digital, textual age. In Living Poets, you will read many different poetic works, including those by Asian American and Pacific Islander, Black, Brown, Indigenous, female-identified and queer poets who are very much alive, here in the Twin Cities and across the USA as well as the world. Unlike poems from centuries ago, these poems use contemporary language and are grounded in more recent events and experiences—contexts that make these poems easier to enter as readers. Using contemporary culture as a comfortable entry point to the timeless subject of poetry, you will consider the literary histories and movements that precede these poems, such as Confessionalism, as well as forms that poets reinvent, such as the sonnet. In which ways do these poets defy or fit into poetic traditions? What new directions are these poets taking? Hear their words, read their books, and find out.

OPT - Student Option

Literature

No

Every Spring