Time and Poetry — Writing in Four Dimensions [Bill Carty]

This class investigates poetry as a tool for approaching what Brenda Hillman calls “the problem of time,” “of there not being / enough of it.” We will study how poetry, through associative logic, pacing, and other tools, allows writers to explore history, image, and narrative. We’ll read Dean Young, Mary Ruefle, Xi Chuan, Jorie Graham, and other poets, combining class discussion with weekly writing prompts to generate poems that explore, as Borges says, “the simultaneity of the three tenses.”