module specification

Contemporary Poetry: Theory and Practice will provide students with an overview of post-war twentieth-century poetry in Britain and the US, while they examine the critical theories and skills required to read and write contemporary poetry. Students will study specific poets and movements while developing their own poetic practice. While some students will specialise in writing their own poetry and some in critical appreciation of published contemporary poetry, all will explore the connections between critical and creative practice in the light of contemporary poetics.

The module will be taught by a programme of weekly sessions comprising lectures and seminars or workshops and guided online learning. Assessment will comprise: written presentation and analyses of published poems; essays demonstrating knowledge of form and genre, reflective writing on the development of contemporary poetics or submission of the students’ own poetry. (4500 words or prose in total or equivalent)

• Evaluate a range of  post-war US and UK poets and movements
• Examine a variety of stylistic and thematic poetic techniques
• Evaluate significant practical and theoretical aspects of contemporary poetry
• Establish connections between creative and critical approaches to contemporary poetry

Students will be introduced to key post-war poetic movements and poets, such as Beat and Confessional poetry, New Formalism and Language Poetry in the US, and the Movement and poetic uses of myth and monologue in the UK. Poets studied may include Ginsberg, Plath, Hejinian, Larkin, Hughes, Duffy and Heaney. Students will study thematic concerns including politics, ethnicity and gender, alongside stylistic aspects of contemporary poetry including the use of free verse and the correspondences between poetry and art (ekphrasis). Students will practice creative and critical writing in the field of contemporary poetry, with the option to specialise in one approach. All students will reflect on the connections between these approaches in workshop, seminar, and written assessment.

The module will be taught by a programme of weekly sessions. The first hour will generally comprise a lecture on the subject of the week which will include introduction to a poetic movement or significant poet, key stylistic and thematic issues, and pointers in applying these issues to reading and writing poetry. Seminars will comprise student discussion of published poems and workshop of their own writing, both critical and creative. The connections between creative and critical engagement in contemporary issues will be prominent throughout the module and will form a major point of reflection in students’ own Personal Development Portfolio work.  The module will be enhanced by guest speakers and poets where appropriate and by visits to the Poetry Library, a London Art Gallery and an optional extra visit to an evening Poetry Reading in central London. Independent learning will include guided reading, weekly writing tasks both critical and creative, and classes will be supported by weekly use of a tutor-moderated online forum. The module will be supported by a weblearn site containing lecture notes, extended bibliographies, and weblinks. Students will be encouraged to keep blogs and to contribute to an online discussion forum. Employability skills are embedded as part of the project-based visits to the Poetry Library and Art Gallery, to discussions with guest speakers and published poets, and to the evening poetry reading; in the development of seminar contribution and presentation skills, as well as disciplined research and use of the online moderated forum.

On completing this module students will be able to

1. Evaluate key post-war poetic movements and poets
2. Analyse contemporary poetry in terms of context and close reading
3. Develop, orally and in writing, a creative and critical engagement with contemporary poetry.

• Formative assessment will comprise short weekly written exercises both creative and critical, and oral contributions to seminars and workshops.
• Summative assessment will comprise: written presentation and analyses of poems; essays demonstrating knowledge of form and genre, and reflective writing on the development of contemporary poetics

Critical Texts

Stephen Beach, The Cambridge Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Poetry, Cambridge: C.U.P, 2003
Neil Corcoran, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century English Poetry, Cambridge: C.U.P., 2007
Neil Roberts, ed, A Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003

Guides to Writing Poetry

Julia Casterton, Writing Poetry: a Practical Guide, Crowood Press, 2005
John Lennard, The Poetry Handbook, OUP, 2005 (2nd edition)
John Redmond, How To Write A Poem, Blackwell, 2006.

Anthologies

Paul Hoover, ed. Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology, Norton, 1994
Edward Lucie-Smith, ed., British Poetry Since 1945, Penguin, 1986
Michael Hulse, David Kennedy, David Morley eds, The New Poetry, Bloodaxe, 1993

Websites

The Poetry Archive: www.poetryarchive.org
The Poetry Foundation: www.poetryfoundation.org
The Poetry Society: www.poetrysociety.org.uk