Measuring American Poetry

Traditionally used to describe the meter in which a given poem is written, the concept of measure is one that American poets have problematized with special intensity. One such poet is William Carlos Williams, who in 1948 suggested that measure is the place where poetry “comes into contact with reality.” If it is true that thinking about measure leads to thinking about poetry’s contact with reality, then it is necessary to ask an additional question: namely, can poetry affect and even change the reality with which it makes contact? This course introduces students to major American poets, paying particular attention to the ways in which these poets have experimented with measure in the hopes of making changes to reality. Students will be asked to think about why American poets in particular have paid such close attention to measure and, at the same time, how poetry has an impact on our imagination of how the world should be. What is the relation between what poetry allows into its form and what its form allows it to push away and ignore? What kinds of events will poets allow their poems to be influenced by, and what kinds of events in the world can poems make happen? These questions allude to the fact that we will sometimes find poetry serving as a means of contesting reality and sometimes as the kind of thing that keeps us from facing reality’s deep and difficult truths. At minimum, students who take this course will be given the time and space to read representative works of the American poetic tradition and have the chance to think more like poets about their scholarly work.