Department of English

This course surveys 20th-century American poetry. We will begin from the modernists (T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound) and anti-modernists (Robert Frost), registering the importance of the image and imagism to both. We will proceed through objectivism (Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams) and then to the Harlem Renaissance. Next comes the turn to more “autobiographical” poetry in the second half of the century (the Beats, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop), and we end with the turn to language (John Ashbery, Jorie Graham). Throughout we will pay attention to the way poetry works: meter, syntax, metaphor and other tropes. Participants in this course should come prepared to read carefully and closely—and also to enjoy. Grades depend on participation, midterm and final papers and exams, and possibly some other short assignments.

• A&H
• What are CASE requirements?