3.0

Average Course Rating

In the 2015 New York Times article “A Language for Grieving,” the literary scholar Sonya Posmentier writes, “By making violence strange and unfamiliar, very different poets like [Gwendolyn] Brooks and [M. NourbeSe] Philip have gone beyond merely repeating its effects, like a viral video of a police shooting, and beyond the realm of the evidentiary to that of the imagination, where we might not only observe violence but mourn and counter it.” In this course, we will explore how 20th- and 21st-century African American and African diasporic poets have moved “beyond the realm of the evidentiary to that of the imagination” to write about, into, and through history. Readings may include work by Robert Hayden, Gwendolyn Brooks, M. NourbeSe Phillip, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Patricia Smith, Tyehimba Jess, Cameron Awkward-Rich, and others, including a multigenerational selection of elegies for Emmett Till. Students should expect to engage with the readings both creatively and analytically and will have the opportunity to write their own historical poetry.