"I, too, dislike it."

Marianne Moore

You don't hate it.  In fact, you probably already love poetry.  In this course we will attempt to rediscover the love for language, sound, and rhythm we all share, even if we think we've escaped it.  In doing so we will read and hear a wide range of poetry, from "literary" poems to pop songs to nursery rhymes (though we will certainly read a great deal of contemporary American poems).  These varieties of poetry, and the ways in which we respond to them, will form the subjects of the various writing assignments throughout the academic term.  As we consider and write about poetry, we will be less interested in figuring out what poems mean than we will be in how poems make delight, wisdom, and — yes — meaning in the first place.