What is identity? How do poets conceive of, create, and depict their various identities vis-a-vis class, race, nationhood, religion, gender and sexuality? This seminar invites students to locate themselves within the sociopolitical framework of our day - as artists, writers, and citizens - and to consider the role that our personal and collective identities play in the creative work we generate. Through close readings of a diverse range of poets, including Lucille Clifton, Mahmoud Darwish, Safia Elhillo, Essex Hemphill, W.S. Merwin, Rajiv Mohabir, Sharon Olds, and Natasha Trethewey, among others, we will emphasize the use of poetic form, image, and rhetoric in poems "about identity." By focusing on poems "about identity" - that is, poems that seem to pronounce our differences - we will create a space that centers our shared humanity, through empathy, intuition, and compassion. Each student will generate both critical writing about a poet of their choice as well as a body of creative work that will be bound into a chapbook. We will read carefully, and each student will be responsible for leading one or more class discussions, sharpening their own critical skills as scholar, reader, teacher, and writer. Assignments will include weekly readings and generative writing exercises. This seminar is open to graduate students across the college with permission of the instructor; students are not expected to be poets nor are they required to write poetry as part of the seminar, although they are strongly urged to experiment with poetic form and to explore notions of identity.

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