LIT6044   Creative Writing: Poetry 2   (30 credits)

Description

The module will entail a practical writing workshop where students will read, discuss, analyze and critique their own and other students' poetry, as well as learning the fundamentals of close reading, technical analysis and critical judgment of contemporary poets from a practitioner's point of view. The workshopping will be structured according to a programme of topics, exercises and commissions which will encourage and train students in the basics of poetry techniques in the main genres and sub-genres, as well as aid them in the development of their own creative writing to an acceptable and potentially publishable standard. Students will study poetry through appropriate and writer-centred theoretical frameworks - such as form and convention, issues of class, race, language, gender in poetry, narrative, lyric, dramatic poetry - whilst also being encouraged to critique each others' work, to workshop writing creatively and constructively, and to work with tutors to help prepare work in progress for the main dissertation project later in the year. Students will produce a portfolio of poems based on the workshop commissions as well as a critical essay reflecting on the creative processes involved in their submission.

Reading List