POETICS: THE POETRY OF POETRY

I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree… But what is poetry? Are there “right” and “wrong” interpretations of poems? Does a poem mean whatever a reader wants it to mean? Why are “great” poems (the ones you read in English classes) “great?” Why did the poet Ezra Pound say “poets are the antennae of the race?” Ponder these questions that philosophers, critics, and readers of poetry have asked—ever since Aristotle’s Poetics. Read, discuss, and debate different poetic art works. Bring your sense of humor and communality to this class, which will deepen and broaden your appreciation of this often misunderstood, undervalued, and mistaught form of expression.