ENG 3620 PBC
ENG 3620—Creative Writing: Poetry
Three Semester Hours
RK 7/14
Prerequisites
University Requisite: ENG 200 or 202 or 250 or 2010 or 2020
Course Description
Beginning course in writing poetry with emphasis on invention, craft, and criticism of student writing and published poetry.
Methods of Course Instruction
All material for this course is print-based. Instructor and students communicate and exchange materials through postal mail.
E-Print Option
In this course, an option exists to use e-mail to submit your lesson assignments. Your assignment will be returned to you either as an e-mail attachment or as a hard copy sent through the postal mail, depending on the preferences of the instructor and/or program.
Textbooks and Supplies
- Addonizio, Kim and Dorianne Laux, eds. The Poet’s Companion. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997. [ISBN: 9780393316544]
- Keillor, Garrison, ed. Good Poems. New York: Penguin, 2002. [ISBN: 9780142003442]
- Keillor, Garrison, ed. Good Poems for Hard Times. New York: Penguin, 2005. [ISBN: 9780143037675]
Number of Lessons
This course has ten lessons with no examinations. The last lesson assignment requires you to submit a portfolio that contains a final typed version of six of your poems, two of the exercise poems, and at least one revised draft of each poem which may or may not be typed. The lessons include:
- Lesson 1: Subject Matter
- Lesson 2: Making Memory Work
- Lesson 3: Writing About Place
- Lesson 4: Outer Movement: Form
- Lesson 5: Metaphor, Simile, and Image
- Lesson 6: Meter, Rhyme, Form, and Repetition
- Lesson 7: Voice and Style
- Lesson 8: Revision
- Lesson 9: Poetry of Loss and Love
- Lesson 10: The Final Portfolio
Types of Writing Assignments
Most lessons cover one or two aspects of writing poems and require a written essay in response to a poem in that particular section. The poems you will write about are, for the most part, contemporary American poems. The essays are to follow standard rules of composition. Assignments should be typed double-spaced and on one side of the paper.
Lessons will require you to submit an original poem or two. I will ask you to write poems that go along with the topics covered in each lesson. Sometimes I will ask you to submit two poems. One will be an original composition and the other will be based on an exercise from the course guide.
Grading Criteria
Each lesson in this course counts equally toward your final grade. Each lesson, therefore, requires an attitude of determination and commitment. I will grade your essay and your poems separately in each lesson and give you a combined grade. Once I’ve made comments on your poems from each lesson, I expect you to rethink and revise them.