Writing Alongside Plath and Roethke [Deborah Woodard]

All Levels. We’ll explore the poetry of Plath and Roethke with particular attention to how they trust metaphor to convey their core stories (childhood neglect fueling stylistic rebellion and vindication). Through looking at their roots in children’s and so-called light verse, and through exploring their different resolutions of trauma, we’ll find specific ways to spark and refine our own narratives, whether traumatic or not. Required Texts available from Elliott Bay Bookstore: Plath, Sylvia, The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath. ed. Ted Hughes (Harper Perennial, 2008); and Roethke, Theodore. The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke (Anchor Books, 1975)