Advanced Poetry: Learning from Poets

This is a course for advanced creative writers in all genres who wish to develop their voices by studying the work of such poets as Seamus Heaney, Robert Lowell, Terrance Hayes, and Elizabeth Bishop, writers widely held to be masters of sonics, line quality, phrasing, description, and invention.

We also read Helen Vendler's Coming of Age as a Poet , a book that traces the development of several poets working in the direction of their first mature poem.

With weekly critical and poetic readings, as well as writing assignments and a final portfolio of poetry and other creative work, this course shows students how to develop their voices as they immerse themselves in the work of some of the greatest guides in the history of the art.