English 612-001
Poetry and the Creative Process: Modern American Poetry in a Biographical Context
Instr: Kilwein Guevara, Maurice
Office: CRT 512; 229-4520
e-mail: maurice@uwm.edu
Office hours: TBA
Course Information: TR; 12:30-1:45pm; CRT 466
Course Description
This should be a very interesting, informative, and enjoyable exploration of several key figures in Modernist American poetry whose work will be viewed from a biographical lens. The class begins with the premise that poems always occur within the context of the poet's life, so that a better understanding of the life and times of a particular poet should shed important light on aspects of the literary work. Although I am still shaping the final reading list, I am currently planning on the following pairings: John Haffenden's The Life of John Berryman and The Dream Songs, Cynthia Earl Kerman and Richard Elridge's The Lives of Jean Toomer: A Hunger for Wholeness and Cane, Elizabeth Bishop's One Art: Letters and The Complete Poems, 1927-1979, and Autobiography of William Carlos Williams and Patterson.
