EN3MPY-Creative Writing Masterclass: Poetry

Module Provider: English Literature
Number of credits: 20 [10 ECTS credits]
Level:6
Terms in which taught: Autumn term module
Pre-requisites:
Non-modular pre-requisites: Pre-requisites: Successful completion of 40 creditsô€€’ worth of Creative Writing modules at Part Two, or, in special cases (including visiting students registered to creative writing programmes in their home universities), you may seek the consent of the convenor.
Co-requisites:
Modules excluded:
Current from: 2021/2

Module Convenor: Prof Peter Robinson
Email: P.Robinson@reading.ac.uk

Type of module:

Summary module description:

This module will enable students to develop and design a short collection of poems, or a sequence or series of poems, or one longer poem, with a view to submitting a selection or extract to a print or online poetry magazine. Weekly workshops will introduce original exercises to allow students to generate material and hone technique. Attention will be paid to the elaboration of style and voice, as well as the balance between consistency and variety of theme and premise across the collection. Workshops will also facilitate group discussion of student work. Close consideration will be given to issues of address and audience, as well as the nature and scope of the poetry being written and published today, with particular focus on emerging voices and subject-matter.

Aims:

The module has three aims:

• To enable students to read and analyse a range of contemporary poetry, deepening their understanding of literary considerations specific to the form.


• to encourage students to engage with contemporary debates around poetry, and to explore those debate their own creative writing.Ìý


• to equip students to write, evaluate and edit their own poetry. ÌýÌý

Assessable learning outcomes:

By the end of the module, it is expected that students will be able to:

• demonstrate knowledge of a wide range of contemporary poetry


• engage critically with key contemporary debates around poetry.


• write and edit their own short poetry collection


• Reflect critically on their own individual poems


• Reflect critically on their work as a collection of poems

Additional outcomes:

Oral and written communication skills will be developed, together with critical, interpretative and analytical abilities. Students will also enhance their IT competence through the use of relevant web resources in a critically informed manner.Ìý

Outline content:

The module will highlight questions of form, craft and technique, with particular attention to the variety of approaches to these issues in contemporary poetry. Discussion may include, but is not limited to: reflection on the differences between narrative and lyric poetry; the relevance of sound, diction, contemporary speech and rhyme; the importance of the relation of the poem to the page; the relationship between poetry and other arts or discourses. We will also address questions of content , which may include, but is not limited to: poetry and identity; poetry and ecology; poetry and the political, poetry and theory; poetry and the spiritual.

Brief description of teaching and learning methods:

The module will be taught in a weekly two-hour seminar for which students are to do preparatory reading and writing. This seminar will be supplemented by a weekly lecture/one-hour session in which students will consider issues of editing and redrafting set in advance by their seminar leader. Students are also entitled to a half-hour tutorial on their formative written work.