Creative Writing

Note: Enrollment by instructor approval. Please email Aurelia Cojocaru at aurelia.cojocaru@berkeley.edu a writing sample no longer than 3 pages by July 1st, 2017. Selected students will be notified and enrolled.

This poetry workshop is designed for students who would like to become better readers and writers of poetry, regardless of their experience. The writing component will encourage each writer to develop and pursue their own project. The reading component will help us explore two key questions in the history of modern poetry, stimulating each writer to discover what it means for them to write poetry in the here and now. First, by reading poetry across a variety of language traditions and historical contexts, we will be asking what makes a poetic text powerful as a voice-giving medium that faces current events. Second, by looking into how other discourses and areas of knowledge have given rise to various poetic “experiments” (such as philosophy, science, AI), we will think critically about the value of “newness” in our work.

Requirements will include critical responses on assigned readings, weekly writing prompts, in-class workshops, critique of each other’s writing, a final project and a final performance.