Meets the following requirements: HS   

Since Anne Bradstreet in the seventeenth century, American poets have responded to the natural environment and its human transformation. Poets have learned to see by their exposure to nature, then in turn have used their techniques of vision, music and metaphor to teach us how to see who and where we are.  This class considers poets of the Romantic and Transcendental movements, spends some time with Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, then focuses on the twentieth century, especially T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Robinson Jeffers, and Elizabeth Bishop.  We end with some contemporaries:  Robert Hass, Charles Simic, Gary Snyder, and Mary Oliver.  Students may write either an analytical paper or a collection of their own poetry.  Class meetings are supplemented by additional workshop sessions for student poets. 

Level: Intermediate.  *HS*