If you test positive for Covid – Don’t come to class until you test negative. But let your teacher know and we’ll work to give you access to your missed classes via Zoom.
If you show Covid symptoms OR If you have been exposed to someone with Covid – Don’t come to class for at least 5 days after showing symptoms or exposure, and then take a test to confirm that you are negative. Let your teacher know and we’ll work to give you access to your missed classes via Zoom.
If you have any questions about this, you may call (212-974-8377) or email us ([email protected]).
Poetry Writing II
Poetry Writing II is a 10-week workshop, which includes lectures, exercises, and the critiquing of student projects. The prerequisite is Poetry I (10-week), or the equivalent; Level II courses work best when students know the fundamentals and have experience with the workshop process. Farther down, you can view a syllabus for this course.
Consider it the caviar of literature: tiny eggs with tremendous taste. Or the nitroglycerin: every drop explosive. Poetry's power has endured thousands of years, captivating the most passionate souls. If you hear mermaids singing or feel the winnowing wind or see the sun rising in ribbons, then you are one of these blissful few.
To write excellent poetry, you must learn the art of packing the maximum punch with a minimum of words. Here you will learn about the specialized techniques, demands, and forms of poetry, as well as how to market your work.
If you seek to write for publication or performance, yourself or the world, we’ll show you how to write exquisite poetry.
A terrific immersion into how to read poetry well, including and especially your own.
David Klopfenstein
technical project manager
10-Week
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Zoom
Real-time videoconference
Tuition: $439 (returning students: $409)
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One-on-One
Tuition: $1,895
Syllabus
This course helps you sharpen your skills at poetry craft and work toward completion of one or two poems. Writers often repeat Poetry II to continue their projects. Course components:
Lectures
Writing exercises
Workshopping of student projects (each student presenting work two times)
New York City/Zoom classes
The syllabus varies from teacher to teacher, term to term. Many topics will be similar to those covered in the Online classes.
Online classes
Week 1
Tension: Poets control tension in different ways, tones, and styles.
Week 2
Metaphor: Powerful poems with and without metaphor. The benefit of figurative language.
Week 3
The Line: Emotional impact of varying line lengths.
Week 4
Meaning: Different readers' interpretations. Impressions and ideas.
Week 5
Philosophy Poems: Exploring the reasons we write and our intentions.
Week 6
Sentimentality: Emotional vs. sentimental.
Week 7
Elegy: Writing about loss. Memorializing in poetry.
Week 8
Perspective: Interpretations.
Week 9
The Impersonal I: Different kinds of first-person narration.
Week 10
Final Lines/Stanzas: How to wrap up a poem's ending. Getting the tone right. Letting the arc naturally dissolve and come to a rest.
Note: Content may vary among individual classes.
Teachers
Carmen Bugan
Carmen Bugan is the author of the memoir Burying the Typewriter (Picador), the essay collection Poetry and the Language of Opression (Oxford University), and the poetry collections Tristia, Time Being, Lillies from America, Releasing the Porcelain Birds, The House of Straw (all Shearsman Books), and Crossing the Carpathians (Carcanet Press). Her poems and essays have appeared in the Irish Times, the Harvard Review, the International Literature Quarterly, the Nieman Storyboard, and the anthologies Centres of Catacylsm (Bloodaxe Books), See How I Land (Heaven Tree Press), and Penguin’s Poems for Life (Penguin). She has taught at Grand Valley State University, the University of Fribourg, the Geneva Writers’ Group, and Oxford University. She holds a BA from the University of Michigan, an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University, and a Master’s and Ph.D, both in English Literature, from Oxford University.
Read moreCarmen Bugan
Carmen Bugan
is the author of the memoir Burying the Typewriter (Picador), the essay collection Poetry and the Language of Opression (Oxford University), and the poetry collections Tristia, Time Being, Lillies from America, Releasing the Porcelain Birds, The House of Straw (all Shearsman Books), and Crossing the Carpathians (Carcanet Press). Her poems and essays have appeared in the Irish Times, the Harvard Review, the International Literature Quarterly, the Nieman Storyboard, and the anthologies Centres of Catacylsm (Bloodaxe Books), See How I Land (Heaven Tree Press), and Penguin’s Poems for Life (Penguin). She has taught at Grand Valley State University, the University of Fribourg, the Geneva Writers’ Group, and Oxford University. She holds a BA from the University of Michigan, an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University, and a Master’s and Ph.D, both in English Literature, from Oxford University.
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