Course schedule for the Creative Writing Graduate Certificate Program, Northwestern University School of Professional Studies - Northwestern School of Professional Studies

Course Schedule

MCW 479-DL : Poetry for Prose Writers

Description

Poetry for Prose Writers examines how the art of poetry can enrich the writing of fiction and creative nonfiction. By examining the literary strategies shared across genres and the elements distinguishing one genre from another, students will explore how genres work in isolation and in concert with one another. This course includes an introduction to traditional and more modern forms of poetry and students will have the opportunity to write and workshop their own original poems, both formal and free verse. Because a writer learns how to write from reading actively and ambitiously as well as from composing their own original work, this course will include plentiful reading assignments as companions to the five original poems students will write and workshop during the quarter. We will read a selection of poems that range widely in time, authorship and style in our study of different poetic forms and modes. Above all, we will have the opportunity to immerse ourselves in the sense of play and limitless linguistic possibility poetry offers to both its readers and writers. (This course is a requirement for fiction and nonfiction students pursuing MA and MFA in Creative Writing degrees. This course is not required for students pursuing the MFA in Prose and Poetry or the MA in Writing degrees, but they may take the course as an elective. If a poetry student in any of the writing programs wishes to take this course for poetry workshop credit, they must contact the instructor for permission and notify their academic advisor.)