Registration required:
Online, 5 sessions / $325
Register
Before there were books, there were verse stories. Before there were novels, there were epics. The long poem is among the very oldest literary forms, yet it has also been continually reinvented and is just as weird and alive as ever.
In this course, we’ll read
five long poems written within the last century, exploring how each manipulates
time, conveys plot, indexes thought, and updates the traditions of lyric and
epic poetries. What happens when poems import techniques from prose genres and internet
subcultures? How can ancient forms accommodate contemporary themes? Class will
consist of lively discussions of the primary texts and supplementary readings;
students will also engage in brief in-class writing exercises and receive generative
take-home prompts and recommended reading lists.
Crash Course seminars require outside reading of assigned texts. After enrolling, students should plan to access (purchase or borrow) the following texts in time to read them ahead of class sessions. Enrolled students should join the first session having read The Book of the Dead.
Reading List:
- The Book of the Dead, Muriel Rukeyser (1933). Buy: [Print]
- In the Mecca, Gwendolyn Brooks (1968). OUT OF PRINT*
- Midwinter Day, Bernadette Mayer (1982). Buy: [Print]
- IRL, Tommy Pico (2016). Buy: [Print] [Digital]
- Inventory, Dionne Brand (2019). Buy: [Print] [Digital]
*This out-of-print title can be borrowed from your local library or viewed online (via the Boston Public Library's collection) at Archive.org (with a free account).
Class modality: Online synchronous (real-time attendance required)
Class size: 8 to 25 students
Required textbooks: Yes
Recorded: Yes
In-class & prompted writing: Yes
Workshopping & feedback: No
Maggie Millner is the author of Couplets, a New York Times Editors' Choice, one of The Atlantic's ten best books of 2023, and a finalist for the LA Times Book Award in Poetry and the Lambda Literary Award for lesbian poetry. Couplets has been (or will be) translated into six languages and published in seven countries. Maggie's poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, POETRY, Kenyon Review, BOMB, The Nation, and elsewhere. She works as a Lecturer at Yale and a Senior Editor at The Yale Review.
A limited number of need-based scholarships are available to cover the enrollment costs of Poetry Society classes. To receive and fill out a scholarship survey, email parker@poetrysociety.org.
