Politics and Poetry [Johnny Horton]
Mark Edmundson recently complained in Harper’s Magazine that contemporary American poets fail to take clear, political stands. We’ll discuss political poems and read what poets have said about politics and poetry, focusing on how political poems fail or succeed to communicate truths of human feeling in their attempt to be topical. What do poets risk when they write political poems? What good do political poems do the world? We’ll read Percy Shelley, John Keats, and Lord Byron, and then more modern poets like James Wright, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Carolyn Forche, and Carl Phillips. Looking for writers of all levels able to discuss hot topics respectfully.
No class Nov. 30.
