The City is one of poetry's greatest subjects. For as long as people have been writing verse they have extolled the virtues and condemed the vices of city life. From the words of the psalmist ("If I forget you oh Jerusalem, shall my right hand forget its cunning") to the words of Frank O'Hara ("It is 12:20 in New York a Friday") the city has enthralled poets for millenia.
What is it about cities that lures poets to them? In this course we will not only investigate cities as a subject of poetry, but we will take this one step further by examining the city itself as a poem. For example, how do different cities and poems look from far away, and what can we deduce about them from this knowledge? How might one read a city block in the way someone reads a line of poetry?
The Cities of Poetry and the Poetry of Cities is for anyone interested in poetry, urban planning, or who simply wants their life in the city to be infused with greater observational skills and meaning.
This course is divided into four parts.
- Form (spawl and sonnets)
- Image & Imagination (lines and blocks)
- Experience & Memory (first reading, first arrival; rhythms & rhymes)
- Density & Layering (what brings it all together, and what lies beneath)
NOTE: This is a 4-part course. Due to limitations with the ticketing system, please purchase one ticket for April 6 to get access to all four days. Do not buy more than one ticket. Do not buy tickets for any other day.