Poets use language to create an experience for the reader by using images, metaphors, similes, rhythm and sound like musicians use notes, sound and rhythm to tempt audiences to feel deeply what can be known about the roots of the human condition. 

In this writing-intensive program, students will read poetry by a wide variety of writers, study poetic form and explore a variety of strategies for writing poetry. Fall quarter, they will read Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry by John Frederick Nims and David Mason, and will learn about the history of poetry and the development of different styles and techniques for writing poems. There will be assignments online that allow students to listen to poets and performers read poetry and study techniques for reading poetry as well as writing it. All students will be required to write at least two poems each week and to present those poems for discussion in a writers' workshop. They will continue to work on drafts throughout the quarter. Students will also be required to attend poetry readings, and to study poetry publications and strategies for publishing their work in a variety of magazines, journals and online sites. At the end of the quarter, they will hand in a portfolio that contains all the drafts and comments on their poems with a clean final draft on top.

Winter quarter, students will have the opportunity to study a diverse collection of chapbook and book length collections of poems and to discuss how poets choose and arrange poems to prepare them for submission to a press. They will continue to hand in two poems a week for workshop and to work on drafts of their poetry throughout the quarter and submit new drafts to their faculty. They will study publishers of poetry books, and hand in a portfolio with all their drafts at the end of Winter quarter. They will also prepare poetry for submission to a journal before the end of the quarter.