Creative Writing

Note:  Enrollment by instructor approval only; email a maximum 5 page writing sample to instructor Jocelyn Saidenberg (jsaidenberg@berkeley.edu).  Selected applicants will be then notified and enrolled.

Course Description:  This introductory poetry workshop is open to all students interested in reading and writing poetry regardless of experience.  We will read poems and poetic essays from a range of national literatures and historical periods that will expand and challenge our understanding of what a poem might be and do. Reading assignments and writing experiments will generate materials for the workshop and build the tools to develop a writing practice and language. Each week students will compose poems in response to writing exercises that I provide and that the class develops together. In addition, students are required to write critical responses to assigned readings, keep a reading journal, comment on each other’s writing, attend readings, and memorize their own poems for recitation. For the final project, students will make a chapbook containing revised poems and a poetic statement.