American Idiom II
Gigi Bradford
Six Tuesdays:
Jan. 8, Jan. 15, Jan. 22, Jan. 29, Feb. 5, Feb. 19 (no class February 12), 3-4:30 p.m.
Price: $120/110 members
Books:
New Selected Poems, Galway Kinnell
Migration: New & Selected Poems, W.S. Merwin
THIS CLASS IS NOW FULLY ENROLLED. To be added to the waitlist, email mravenscroft@politics-prose.com.
REFUND POLICY: Please note that we can only issue class refunds within seven (7) days of the first class session.
Join us as we continue our investigation into what makes contemporary American poetry distinctive in content and form. We will read two Pulitzer-Prize-winning poets active in the second half of the 20th century up to the present: Galway Kinnell and W.S. Merwin. Kinnell was born in Rhode Island and has honed his poetic voice in rural New England. Merwin lived as a youth in Scranton, PA, but has spent latter decades in Hawaii. Though they were Princeton classmates (1948) and have been friends since college, these poets write completely differently from each other. Kinnell is a devotee of Whitman’s long lines and plain speech; Merwin’s work reflects imagistic Chinese and Japanese poetry with American themes. You will find these poems accessible and perhaps even familiar. No previous poetry experience or expertise is necessary, just pleasure in mutual reading and exploration.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Gigi Bradford is the President of the Folger Shakespeare Library Poetry Board.
