Exploring Poetry: Language, Play and Form Course Descriptor

Course Overview

Poetry is about play: exploring the capabilities of language and the shape it makes on the page. It can also provoke strong emotions: generate affection, enact grief or remind us of joy. Good poetry is a combination of technique and depth of subject, and this course teaches students  the fundamentals of both. Students will uncover the  elements of craft and theory  underpinning a diverse range of contemporary poetry; study poems step-by-step, from titles to final lines; learn formal conventions alongside innovations; and encounter provocative poetry which asks questions of its contemporary culture. Students will also learn to deconstruct poetry as both practitioners and editors, and to situate this learning in an academic context. Experiential teaching tools will help them develop their own poetic voices and a ‘craft toolbox’ to draw from in future writing.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and range of additional resources (e.g. readings, question prompts, tasks, assignment briefs, discussion boards) to orientate and engage you in your studies.

The scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course are:

1. Lectures and Writing Workshops 

40 scheduled hours – typically including induction, consolidation or revision, and assessment activity hours.

• Version 1:all sessions in the same sized group

OR 

• Version 2: most of the sessions in larger groups; some of the sessions in smaller groups

OR 

2. Directed study 

4-12 scheduled hours, the exact number varying according to the balance of 1:1s, 2:1s, or small groups. The plan will be confirmed by the start of the course, taking into account student numbers and the proposed topics, readings, and specific tasks.

Faculty hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to drop in or sign up to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback, individually or in small groups. 

Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study.

Indicative total learning hours for this course: 150

Assessment

Both formative and summative assessment are used as part of this course, with purely formative opportunities typically embedded within interactive teaching sessions, office hours, and/or the VLE. 

The summative assessment gives students the opportunity to produce original poems spanning a variety of forms, and to situate their work in an academic context by discussing their creative process in relation to their learning about historical and contemporary poetic cultures in a reflective commentary.

Summative Assessments

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on assignments, through email or the VLE) or oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours). 

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is for a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Fry, Stephen, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within (London: Arrow Books, 2007)
• Levin, Phillis (ed.), The Penguin Book of the Sonnet: 500 Years of a Classic Tradition in English (London; New York: Penguin Books, 2001)
• Oliver, Mary, A Poetry Handbook: A Prose Guide to Understanding and Writing Poetry (San Diego: Harcourt, 1994)
• Strand, Mark, and Eavan Boland, The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001)
• Wainwright, Jeffrey, Poetry: The Basics, 3rd edn (London: Routledge, 2016)
• Williams, Rhian, The Poetry Toolkit: The Essential Guide to Studying Poetry, 2nd edn (London; New York: Continuum, 2009)

Indicative Topics

Note: Comprehensive and current topics for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative topics provided below is used as a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Elements of poetry writing
• The creative process
• Reading as a writer
• Poetics forms/genres
• Writing across audiences
• Critical analysis