Ecopoetry: From Nature to Environment

Can poetry save the world, as some have proposed? Maybe not, yet a poem can reframe our perceptions of the natural world. In this course we will develop our critical thinking and writing skills, as well as our “ecocritical” thinking skills, by exploring how poems about the human relationship to the biophysical environment can inspire us to rethink our place in the universe. We will read works by such poets as Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz, Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, Galway Kinnell, Maxine Kumin, Lucia Perillo, Jorie Graham, and Layli Long Soldier. 3hrs. sem.