COML 3800 - Poetry and Poetics of the Americas

(crosslisted) AMST 3820, ENGL 3910, LATA 3800, SPAN 3800
(LA-AS)

Spring. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Ability to read Spanish desirable but not required; texts not written in English will be available in both translation and the original.

J. Monroe.

As globalization draws the Americas ever closer together, reshaping our sense of a common and uncommon American culture, what claims might be made for a distinctive, diverse poetry and poetics of the America? How might we characterize its dominant forms and alternative practices? What shared influences, affiliations, concerns and approaches might we find and what differences emerge? Ranging across North and South America, Central America and the Caribbean, this course will place in conversation such figures as Poe, Stein, Eliot, Pound, Williams, Neruda, Vallejo, Borges, Parra, Césaire, Walcott, Bolaño, Espada, Waldrop, Vicuña, Hong, and Rankine.