Imagination in the Americas: Six Modern and Contemporary Poets (6 sessions)

In 1871 Walt Whitman proposed in his ?Song of the Exposition? that Americans need no longer look to Europe for inspiration but could find the Muse ?here, installed among the kitchen ware??that is, in their own experience, technology, and environment. In this six-week workshop, we?ll investigate how Whitman pioneered one strand of modern American poetry. We?ll also read poems by five of his successors: Pablo Neruda, Allen Ginsburg, Nancy Willard, Ellen Bass, and Richard Blanco. Participants will examine a few of their strategies such as catalogues, litanies, chants, and odes, and experiment with some of these techniques through in-class exercises and at-home writing assignments.