IN PERSON: John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Butler Yeats, and Wallace Stevens wrote new poetry. Donne lived around 1600; Stevens in the 20th century. Although not appreciated at first, they all profoundly influenced poets who came after them. Among their greatest attributes are passion and compression. Like all great innovators, they can be difficult to understand, but the effort brings great reward. In this course, we will explore short poems by each poet. The poems come first, and we will mostly do close reading, but we will also learn about the poets' lives. We will develop skills that enable better understanding of these great poems and of all poems. This will be a seminar and discussion and not a lecture class, and we will focus on our own discoveries about these poems, not those of commentators. Participants will receive, by email, poems for the next week. | Facilitated discussion.
Max enrollment: 15.
Location: Judea Reform Congregation, 1933 W. Cornwallis Rd, Durham NC 27705
