Whatever else it may be, poetry is always a craft. Rhythm and rhyme, the shaping of lines into a larger form, the choice of words and images, the shape on the page – all demand every poet’s careful attention, and reward every reader.
This course, suitable for anyone wishing to understand poetry better, looks at every element of the poet’s craft. Taking examples (in a course booklet provided) from every century since the 16th, but concentrating on the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, we will in turn look at (and listen to) metre, form, layout, punctuation, lineation, rhyme, diction and syntax, as well as larger considerations of history, biography, and gender. And as well as thinking about each element individually, we will ask how they interconnect – for a poet’s regional accent may affect their choices of rhyme; the demands of rhyme must affect the choice of words; and the punctuation-marks and line-breaks, like lines (as units of form) and clauses (as units of grammar), necessarily march in step or play tag with one another.
Recorded readings and comments by TS Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, Robert Lowell, Hugh MacDiarmid, Robert Graves, and Kamau Brathwaite, as well as the actors James Mason and Richard Burton, will also be used. Not all poets are good readers-aloud of their own work, but to hear their voices and phrasing is always helpful, sometimes revelatory, and Burton was a superb reader whose renditions both thrill and illuminate.
By the end of the course, even experienced readers of poetry will find their understandings enlarged and transformed. Those who write poetry, whether formal or free verse, will also benefit from a clearer understanding of their tools, both in composing and revising. Those facing exams involving poetry will know they need never be at a loss for critical observations. And those for whom poetry seems dry will discover just how much fun, and how powerful, it can be.
