About the Poetry Curriculum

During the first two semesters, poetry students work with Stonecoast poetry faculty according to an individually designed program, designed to challenge and enhance your skill and talent and bring out the unique qualities of your poetry.   Students in these semesters will concentrate intensively on a range of poetic strategies such as voice and tone; narrative and theme; the line; persona; rhythm, meter, scansion and form; translation; and innovative poetic structures and approaches.

The Stonecoast curriculum requires students in these semesters to read deeply in poetry and poetics, as well as writing and revising their own poems.  Poetry faculty guide students to explore poetry from all eras as well as landmark poetry criticism. Stonecoast’s flexible curriculum allows students to write imitative annotations in the style of various poets as well as brief, focused critical papers.

Third semester students round out their understanding of poetry with a third-semester enhancement project.  Stonecoast's six possible academic emphases (craft, theory, publishing, pedagogy, community service, and interdisciplinary collaboration) allow a student to pursue nearly any deeply held intellectual or artistic passion as an enhancement project. Recent enhancement projects in poetry have included archival work with Sylvia Plath's papers, hands-on experimental workshops in drumming and rhythmic writing, an internship at a small poetry press, Jungian interpretations of the persona poem, close critical studies of classical Japanese and contemporary African American poetry, a poetry-dance collaborative performance performed in New York and Washington, and fieldwork using poetry in therapeutic settings and ESL classrooms.

Stonecoast offers a combination of in-depth knowledge and aesthetic breadth that is unique among poetry programs. Special workshop opportunities for poets during the residency, in addition to the ongoing Poetry Workshop, include Master Classes for graduating seniors and half-residency elective workshops in the Prose Poem, Meter, and the Sonnet.

Each residency, a remarkable range of presentations by Stonecoast faculty and visiting poets addresses topics in poetry with in-depth discussion or writing exercises.  Recent seminar topics have included "The Poem's Argument," "Ersatz Forms: Haiku and Ghazal," "Writing Poetry of the Family," "Portrait of A Middle School Poetry Project," "Poetry and Philosophy," and "Revisiting the Villanelle," along with special student-led forums on topics from the ballad to how to organize your poetry submissions, and panels on the work of Csezlaw Milosz, Wallace Stevens, June Jordan, May Swenson, Lucille Clifton, and Bob Dylan. A lively mix of poets and editors visit each residency to give readings and presentations; recent and scheduled visitors include a wonderful variety of poets, from laureates Ted Kooser and Marilyn Nelson to performers Ken Waldman and Jack Wiler, from formalists Josh Mehigan and A.E. Stallings to award-winners Terrance Hayes and Jane Hirshfield. from poet-critic Reginald Shepherd to poet-translator Christophe Fricker, from exploratory poets Lisa Jarnot and Lyn Hejinian to poet-editors Kate Gale (Red Hen Press), Jonathan Galassi (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), April Ossman (Alice James Books), and Jonathan Skinner (Ecopoetics).

Related Links

Poetry at Stonecoast

Poetry Faculty

Visiting Poets and Editors

Sample Poetry Presentations

Poetry in a Multi-Genre Program: a Note from Annie Finch

Alumni Profile