Poetry is, to risk an understatement, ancient—really, really ancient.
As Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky has explained, it is "older than the
computer, older than print, older than writing, and indeed, though
some may find this surprising, much older than prose."  This kind of
longevity points to a usefulness in poetry that has served artists for
centuries; one not available in other literary forms.  Our goal for
this course will be to increase students' appreciation of this unique
use of language, examining poems from many different centuries and in
a wide range of styles and forms.

	Understanding poetry can be difficult, of course.  However, by
making students familiar with its tools (sound, meter, rhythm, theme),
this course hopes to combat the idea that poetic meaning is some kind
of secret owned exclusively by the teacher and accessible to students
only once revealed.  Instead, the intellectual pursuits in this class
will be collaborative, from the work we do on building increasingly
complex written arguments about poems, to the questions we pursue as a
class: what is/is not poetry?  How have the questions we ask about
poetry changed?  How does language allow competing interpretations
within the same poem?

Although most of the class grade will be based on 4 major essays and
two exams, a number of smaller assignments will include reciting
poetry aloud, annotating poems, and even creating our own poetry.
Texts for the class will include Norton's Introduction to
Poetry and a course packet.