Course Description
Summary
What makes a poem political? Why do some poems, chants, and slogans circulate in political contexts, while others don’t? In this course, we will read poems from the 20th and 21st Century that have gone under the banner of “protest poetry” and examine the tools of craft that socially-engaged poets have utilized to further their work. Beginning with poets writing under Soviet repression in the early 1900s, we will explore several movements and historical periods, reading works by Mahmoud Darwish, Adrienne Rich, June Jordan, Bei Dao, Martín Espada, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and others whose poetic work has been situated in relation to activist practice. Readings will also include critical and theoretical writing on poetry and social change. Finally, we will perform close readings on political chants and slogans and attempt to write our own.
Students will write four short responses (two critical and two creative). For the final project, students will write either a) a portfolio of poems with a critical introduction, or b) a manifesto for political writing, citing sources from our syllabus.
