Course Description
Summary
While we conventionally read poetry through a western critical academic lens, in this course, we will approach western poetry from an experimental eastern lens, in an effort to experience the mutually illuminating relationship between poetry and contemplative study and deepen our relationship to the mystical nature of American poetry. In the first part of the semester, students will explore several key Buddhist texts and forms, and can expect to learn about Buddhist phenomenology and the role of poetry in Buddhist practice, and its contemplative approaches to literary study. We will investigate the lines between so-called sacred and secular literature in the West and how the categories change how we practice exegesis. We will consider literary forms such as the sutra, the gatha, the darani, koan, haiku and haibun alongside Buddhist approaches to reading and writing them, such as calligraphic meditation, kinhin walking meditation, and plein-air free-style philosophical debate. Specific readings will include “The Heart Sutra,” excerpts from The Diamond Sutra and The Flower Ornament Sutra, an excerpt from the poetic treatise Genjokoan and “Rivers and Mountains Sutra” by Eihei Dogen, selected koan cases from The Blue Cliff Record and Book of Serenity, and assorted poetry by Chiyo-ni, Buson, Ryokan, Bassho, and Ikkyu, and Sun Buer. From this ground, we will then shift our focus to reading American poets with our own heuristic Buddhist formalist lens which will attempt to craft together. We will read authors who have either directly or indirectly been influenced by East Asian literature or for whom this lens would help to describe an American “mystical” tradition, potentially including Emily Dickinson, WC Williams, Gertude Stein, John Asbbery, Mei-Mei Brussenbrugge, Brandon Shimoda and Filip Marinovich. By the end of the semester, students will have a felt sense of how this comparative contemplative methodology can deepen our understanding of reading poetry, its relationship to contemplative practices such as Buddhism, and of American literary approaches to mysticism.
