Contemporary American Poetry

Catalog description

This course will look at contemporary American poetry (1980 to the present) through the lens of the Pitt Poetry Series, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Students will read a book each week. We will write a critical response to each book and also have weekly writing prompts. Authors to be read will include: Etheridge Knight, Sharon Olds, and Larry Levis from the 1980s and 1990s and Paisley Rekdal and Malena Morling from the 2000s. Roughly half of each class will be spent discussing published work, and the other half will be spent discussing student work. The semester will culminate with each student turning in a portfolio of at least seven poems—three drafts for each poem. Students will also write a paper comparing a more recent Pitt poet with a writer from the syllabus. The Distinctive Voice in Poetry