This free online resource is the main text we will use for our poetry course readings this semester, along with video and audio recordings of poets reading their work and discussing poetry, and plenty of poems by professional writers and by you, the members of our own class.
We will focus on elements of craft, the tools of a poet’s toolbox, and on the process of drafting, revision, and presenting poetry. The aim of this book and of the course in general is to read a wide variety of voices and approaches to poetry, to become familiar with the vocabulary and practice some of the techniques available to poets, and to approach all of what we read and write with an open mind and a playful and willing heart.
The main text is adapted from Naming the Unnameable: An Approach to Poetry for New Generations by Michelle Bonczek Evory, with additional discussions and exercises from current CNM instructor Rebecca Aronson. We’ll read and discuss the chapters and sample poems, read and post to on-line blogs in response to posted video and audio recordings, and respond also to one another’s posts. You will be writing and submitting drafts of poems and revisions of those drafts, as well as writing and experimenting with a variety of forms and techniques, based on prompts. Let’s begin!
Thanks to Lauren Camp, Erin Adair-Hodges, Michelle Otero, and Jennifer Givhan for poems and related commentary. Some exercises are also contributed by Felecia Caton-Garcia.
Naming the Unnameable: An Approach to Poetry for New Generations by Michelle Bonczek Evory is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (BY-NC-SA 4.0), except where otherwise noted. OPEN SUNY TEXTBOOKS
©2018 Michelle Bonczek Evory, except where otherwise noted
In some cases, excerpts from poems are included, for which the copyright is held by the poet or publisher. The use of small portions of these works to illustrate concepts and educate is believed to qualify as fair use under United States copyright law. If you are the copyright owner of a poem excerpted in this publication and wish to have it removed, contact us at [email protected].
Edited and adapted by Rebecca Aronson.
Faculty Reviewers:
Megan Barnes
Carly Harschlip
Anne Key, Ph.D.
Jennifer Khron Bourgeois
Sandra Rourke
Jennifer Schaller
Brenton Woodward