Course details

Name: ENLT - 250

Title: BANNED POETS

Section: 01

Semester: Winter - 2011

Credits: 3

Description:
This course will introduce students to poets who got into trouble for writing poems.
We will consider the work of 20th Century and contemporary international poets such as Pablo Neruda, Czeslaw Milosz, Allen Ginsburg, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Chris Abani, Taslima Nasrin and Bei Dao. The work of these banned poets reminds us of the power of the word. Poets make tyrants nervous; poetry is a reinvention of language, and therefore it offers new ways of thinking. These “political” poets write of love, childhood, landscapes, and (in the case of Neruda) just a pair of socks; poets look at every aspect of the human experience, and consequently, they often address injustice and inequality in their work. We will consider poetry as a field in which the battle over freedom of speech is carried out. Students will develop a more sophisticated appreciation of poetry and the particular linguistic devices it employs. This course will help students write about poetry imaginatively and with critical insight.
Students will engage in online discussions of the poetry. They will be asked to do research on specific poets; they will be asked to use the internet to discover contemporary poets who are banned or are in danger because of their poems. Students will also keep an online journal in which they reflect on poems.
This is an entirely on-line course.

Schedule:

Graduation requirements:

• Any Literature (1e)
• Genre Study (Poetry)
• ()

Teaching Faculty: Lorenz Johnny (lorenzj)

Is course canceled: No