Poetry and Poetics of Writing Back (CWRI30006)

Poetry and Poetics of Writing Back is about how we read and write poetry today. In this subject, we will grapple with notions of canon and legitimacy, inclusivity and exclusivity and think hard about how to write back to them. We will focus on the work of contemporary poets (such as Vuong, Whittaker, Beneba Clarke and Hong) and the many ways in which they’ve re-tooled English, reconstructed language, re-thought poetic form and traditions. In this subject, we will explore the ways in which poetry necessarily lends itself to finding new forms, to an interrogative focus on language, to a profound strangeness, playfulness, and opacity. Using Audre Lorde’s assertion that “the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house” as a springboard, we will search for new linguistic tools with which we can break open and rebuild ossified forms, structures, institutions and ideas to house our writing.