Genres and Forms of Poetry
Course Description
Summary
This course will closely examine various modes in which poetry is commonly written, including the elegy, the ode, the ekphrastic, the prose poem, the pastoral, the aubade, and the litany. Students will also be introduced to the vocabulary and practice of traditional prosody, acquire a familiarity with writing in meter and using rhyme, and attempt prescribed forms such as the sonnet, the villanelle, the sestina, the pantoum, the ghazal, the abecedarian, and the golden shovel. Particular attention will be paid to the evolution of traditional forms and the myriad ways contemporary poets approach form and prosody. Poets whose work will be discussed will likely include Agha Shahid Ali, Christian Bök, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Jericho Brown, Cathy Line Che, Terrance Hayes, Randall Mann, and Maggie Millner. Each week, students will read a packet of poems in a given form or mode, and will attempt a poem in the genre or form being discussed. At the end of the term, students will submit a final portfolio of poems with a critical introductory essay.
Learning Outcomes
- 1) Become familiar both as readers and writers with a wide range of poetic forms and modes and
poetry across historical periods by writers of diverse backgrounds, while expanding a critical
vocabulary to discuss poetry and prosody
2) Think critically about form, structure, diction, syntax, rhythm, rhyme, and decision-making in
poetry
3) Experiment writing poems that employ rhyme and meter
4) Write and revise poems with a focus on form, shape, pattern, repetition, texture, music, and
sound
5)) Strengthen our capacities for peer critique and for offering and receiving supportive,
constructive criticism of creative work
6) Contextualize our work within a particular tradition as we think and write critically about that
context
Prerequisites
Students must submit a statement of interest in the course and four sample poems to Michael Dumanis via [linked form] by November XX, 2026.
Corequisites
Students must attend all Poetry at Bennington readings and Literature Evenings, held most Wednesdays at 7pm.