ENGL 071P. Reading Poetry

If someone came up and started talking a poem at you how would you know it was a poem?” Poet David Antin’s question-that one could “talk” a poem rather than “read” it-queers poetry in a way that questions any poem’s locatability. In this course, we’ll ask what it means to call something a poem. How does poetry differ from prose? How and why might those differences matter? And, as readers, what are the first steps we should take when we encounter a poem? In this course, we will take poetic form as our point of departure. Rather than a historical survey of poetry, this course will focus on specific reading strategies and how particular forms such as the sonnet, the pantoum, and blank verse have evolved over time. For example, we might read a Shakespeare sonnet alongside Raymond Queneau’s Cent Mille Milliards de Poèms (1961)-a series of ten sonnets with interchangeable lines that, when rearranged, can produce more sonnets than a person could read in a lifetime. Such pairings will allow us to think about the impact that form has on our reading strategies. The last several weeks of the course will focus on poets who, like David Antin, reimagine or “unmake” poetic form. Whenever possible, we will link our course discussions to current events and contemporary publications
Humanities.
1 credit.
Fall 2025. Price.
Catalog chapter: English Literature
Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/english-literature

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