32210 Proseminar

Heinz Ickstadt

Contemporary American Poetry

American poetry of the last two decades reflects the multiplicity of voices in a multiethnic culture. Although there are many texts that construct (or reflect the construction of) cultural identity, there are others that reflect their own linguistic constructedness in a more experimental way.

The seminar will focus on different contemporary tendencies by analyzing a variety of poems representative of these poetic modes as well as it will discuss their theoretical (or poetological) foundation. There will be a reader with poems and essays by poets as different as Audre Lorde, Rita Dove, Jimmi Santiago Baca, Charles Bernstein, Rosmarie Waldrop and Susan Howe.

Required: Regular attendance, oral participation and written paper.