WEEK 1: INTRODUCTIONS
READINGS: Read the Introduction to the Anthology: Karl Kirchwey, “A Poet’s Roman Baedeker.”
Versions of Du Bellay’s sonnet no. 3: Ezra Pound, “Rome” (25); Robert Lowell, “Rome in the 16th Century” (26); Seamus Heaney, “Du Bellay in Rome” (27); de Quevedo, “Rome buried” (47).
Introduction/review of poetic techniques.
ASSIGNMENT: Write and workshop a poem based on readings and your experiences in Rome. Optional: attempt a sonnet.
WEEK 2: ROME AS MUSE
Charles Wright, “Roma I” (49-50). Rosanna Warren, “What Leaves” (124).
Elizabeth Jennings, “Fountain” (174). James Wright, “The Vestal in the Forum” (126)
More introductions/reviews to poetic techniques.
ASSIGNMENT: Write and workshop a poem based on readings and your experiences in Rome. Optional: write a poem based on time/fleetingness.
WEEK 3: CAMPO DE’ FIORI
READINGS: Heather McHugh, “What He Thought” (57-60); Swinburne, “The Monument of Giordano Bruno” (60); Moira Egan, “Campo de’ Fiori” (53); Richard Kenney, “At the Pteranodon Baths” (72).
ASSIGNMENT: Write and workshop a poem based on readings and your experiences in Rome. Optional: attempt a poem based on a historical figure.
WEEK 4: ART & CHURCHES
Guided/independent tours of selected churches.
READINGS: Peter Riley, “S. Cecilia in Trastevere” (205); F.T. Prince, “San Luigi dei Francesi” (207); Thom Gunn, “In Santa Maria del Popolo” (209, 210).
ASSIGNMENT: Write and workshop a poem based on readings and your experiences in Rome. Optional: write an ekphrastic poem based on artwork you have seen.
WEEK 5: ART & CHURCHES
READINGS: Richard Kenney, “Imaginative Literature 101” (185); Hannah Sanghee Park, “Galleria Borghese” (186-88); Elizabeth Jennings, “Caravaggio’s ‘Narcissus’ in Rome" (195).
ASSIGNMENT: Write and workshop a poem based on readings and your experiences in Rome. Optional: write an(other) ekphrastic poem based on artwork you have seen.
WEEK 6: ART & CHURCHES
Guided/independent tours of selected churches.
READINGS: Carol Light, “A Cavallini Annunciation” (204); Peter Riley, “Santa Cecilia in Trastevere” (213); David St. John, “The Bells of Santa Maria in Trastevere” (p. 214).
ASSIGNMENT: Write and workshop a poem based on readings and your experiences in Rome. Optional: write a poem that delves into the layers of Rome, and into your own.
—SPRING BREAK—
WEEK 7: COLOSSEUM
Independent visit
READINGS: George Gordon, Lord Byron, from “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage IV” (142,42); Sharon Morris, “Vanishing Point” (147)
ASSIGNMENT: Write and workshop a poem based on readings and your experiences in Rome. Optional: write a poem that includes the Colosseum.
WEEK 8: PANTHEON
READINGS: George Gordon, Lord Byron, from “Child Harold’s Pilgrimage IV” (166); Richard Kenney, “Design” (168); Richard Kenney, “Annunciation” (169); May Swenson, “The Pantheon, Rome” (171,72).
ASSIGNMENT: Write and workshop a poem based on readings and your experiences in Rome. Optional: write a poem that includes the Pantheon.
WEEK 9: MISCELLANEOUS PLACES
(and poems too good not to read)
READINGS: David St. John, “The Kama Sutra According to Fiat” (69,70); James Wright, “Reading a 1979 Inscription on Belli’s Monument” (77); G.G. Belli, Sonnet 1314 “A Very Roman Pastime” and “A nice E’stend ’abit” (75, 76).
ASSIGNMENT: Write and workshop a poem based on readings and your experiences in Rome. Optional: write a poem that includes one of your most memorable experiences or places.
WEEK 10: CIMITERO ACATTOLICO/“The Protestant Cemetery”
Independent visit.
READINGS: Thomas Hardy, “Rome: at the Pyramid” (93,94); Shelley, stanzas from “Adonais” (105-108); Christina Rossetti, “On Keats” (191).
ASSIGNMENT: Write and workshop a poem based on readings and your experiences in Rome. Optional: attempt an elegy.
WEEK 11: CIMITERO ACATTOLICO/“The Protestant Cemetery”
READINGS: Oscar Wilde, “The Grave of Keats” and “The Grave of Shelley” (110,111); James Wright, “In View of the Protestant Cemetery” (112).
ASSIGNMENT: Write and workshop a poem based on readings and your experiences in Rome. Optional: write a free-verse poem dealing with nature and/or/vs. culture.
WEEK 12: THE KEATS-SHELLEY HOUSE
Independent visit.
READINGS: Stella Gibbons, “Writ in Water” (92); John Keats, “This Living Hand” (95); Jorie Graham, “Scirocco” (82-86).
ASSIGNMENT: Write and workshop a poem based on readings and your experiences in Rome. Optional: attempt a poem that reflects Romanticism in some way.
WEEK 13: PIAZZA DI SPAGNA
READINGS: David Constantine, “26 Piazza di Spagna” (80-81); Richard Wilbur, “Piazza di Spagna, Early Morning” (91); Hawley Truax, “The Spanish Steps” (90).
ASSIGNMENT: Write and workshop a poem based on readings and your experiences in Rome. Optional: attempt a poem that reflects Romanticism in some way.
WEEK 14: "YOU'RE UP!"
READINGS: YOU choose a poem from the anthology, one that we haven't discussed. Visit the site or art (its subject) and be prepared to present the poem and talk about the site. Visuals and other creative connections are welcome!
ASSIGNMENT: Write and workshop a poem based on readings and your experiences in Rome. Optional: write a poem that starts to wrap up your experiences of the semester.
WEEK 15:
Although there is no final exam for this course, the class will meet during the time scheduled for the final exam. FINAL PORTFOLIO. FINAL WORKSHOP DISCUSSIONS. FAREWELLS. DETAILS OF OUR FINAL CELEBRATORY MEETING TBA WHEN WE GET CLOSER TO THE TIME.
Supplemental readings, videos, and podcasts will be provided. The idea is to use Rome as Muse, as students explore the city both in person and through Rome-inspired poems, written by poets who have been here before.
This poetry workshop takes the city of Rome as Muse and backdrop. Using the anthology, Poems of Rome, students will read contemporary and canonical poems written by poets who have been touched and inspired by the Eternal City. Independent or guided site visits will take students out to the sources of poetic inspiration. Workshops, mini-lectures, and discussions will highlight traditional and innovative verse structures, also acquainting students with tools for critical reading and incorporating feedback into their own writing. Combining first-hand experience with influences from the texts, students will create a final portfolio of their own poems.