This unit will introduce you to the range and diversity of twentieth century American poetry and poetics. Considering both ‘mainstream’ and ‘experimental’ works from modernism to the Beats, confessional poetry to cyber poetry, we will discuss the ways that poets explore ideas around such issues as poetic tradition, language, knowledge and identity. We will analyse individual poems in relation to theoretical essays on poetics, considering what typifies a specifically American poetic tradition, as well as reflecting on the cultural significance of poetry during the twentieth century. Some of the material we will be discussing can be challenging. Try not to be put off by this but think about why a poem might make a feature of being ‘difficult’. As much as trying to work out what a poem might be saying, always try to think about what it is a poem is doing, as well as how it is doing it. We’ll be exploring why and how a poem works as much as what it appears to be saying. Finally, remember that it’s ok to get lost; it’s difficult to discover things if we’re not prepared to have our assumptions challenged, if we’re not prepared to lose ourselves.
-Dr Nikolai Duffy. 2011
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