Poetry intimidates me because I don’t understand it. I’ve never really tried to understand it because I’ve been too scared. (Recognize the cycle there?)
As a lover of literature shouldn’t I already be able to read and discuss poetry? Is that skill something people are born with? Is there a How To Read Poetry for Dummies book? (Ha, there is!)
Neal at English Major vs. the World recently posted about Coursera. It is a company that partners with universities to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. As I was looking through their offerings I saw this class: Modern and Contemporary American Poetry
About the Course
In this fast-paced course we will read and encounter and discuss a great range of modern and contemporary U.S. poets working in the “experimental mode,” starting with the 19th-century proto-modernists Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman and ending with 21st-century conceptual poetics. Aside from providing a perhaps handy or helpful survey and chronology of 20th- and 21st-century poetry, this course offers a way of understanding general cultural transitions from modernism to postmodernism. Some people may wish to enroll as much to gain an understanding of the modernism/postmodernism problem through a study of poetry as to gain access to the work of these many poets. Participants do not need to have any prior knowledge of poetry or poetics. The instructor, Al Filreis, rarely lectures, and frequently calls for “the end of the lecture as we know it”; instead, most of the video-recorded lessons will consist of collaborative close readings led by Filreis, seminar-style — offering models or samples of readers’ interpretations of these knotty but powerful poems, aided by the poetry-minded denizens of the Kelly Writers House on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania.
I signed up even though I’m a little bit terrified.
Wish me luck!!
Special thanks to Blue Print Review for also pointing out this class to me, I appreciate it!
The Relentless Reader 
I'd just try writing it and that may help you understand how poets work. It only means what you get out of it, I believe.
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Go for it, Jennifer! I can say that writing it is the beginning of understanding it. I did a creative writing class last year and there was a fabulous book that brought us baby steps through how to write poetry. I'll find that for you soon. I actually started to enjoy poetry after that class. There are really very few rules for today's modern poet and you can really do what you want with the stanzas and metrics. Maybe it helps to understand that song lyrics are a form of poetry. Print off a few of your favorite songs and try to read it as poetry. It's a great place to start. Belle
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I remember trying to write poetry back in my angst filled teen days but I haven't attempted it since. 😉
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That is another class I'd love to take, creative writing! I like hearing that about the rules, some would say that rules are made to be broken anyway right? Song lyrics!! That is a great way to think of them, there are so many songs that stop me in my tracks when I hear a certain phrase..someone putting into words how I feel…a lyric that gets to the meat of things. Hmmm…that is definite food for though and I'm glad you brought it up!
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Jennifer, awesome! I'm not a huge poetry person either…but if I'm honest with myself, I think many of my favorite prose authors are also poets, just writing phrases within a prose format. That helps me to be charitable to prose in general, something I often have to work on.
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There are some cool courses on coursea. There is a lot of variety in poetry and I think that people will be able to find something they enjoy.
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That is such a good point Neal, I love that 🙂 I'm hoping that the class is informative and fun, I'll make sure to let everyone know how it turns out.
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This is the first I've heard of Coursera, I'm really looking forward to this class and if all goes well I'll certainly take another!
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Your reading week sounds wonderful. \”To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee\” – thanks for reminding me of the book. So good. And the Coursera course, did you see the pre-course video? here's the link: http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/modpo-intro-video.htmlhave a great reading week!
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I did see that video 🙂 I'm so excited about the class..and I bit nervous too to be honest.
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