About this course: ModPo is a fast-paced introduction to modern and contemporary U.S. poetry, with an emphasis on experimental verse, from Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman to the present. Participants (who need no prior experience with poetry) will learn how to read poems that are supposedly "difficult." We encounter and discuss the poems one at a time. It's much easier than it seems! Join us and try it! Even though we are currently in our offseason ("SloPo"), you are welcome to enroll now. You will have access to the entire ModPo site. Explore; meet some ModPo'ers who are conversing in the site year-round; read poems and watch videos. Then join us again when the intense "symposium mode" starts up again in September. Yes, the next live, interactive 10-week session of ModPo will begin on September 9, 2017, and will conclude on November 20, 2017. Al Filreis will be in touch with you by email before the September 9 start of the course with all the information you'll need to participate. If you have questions, you can email the ModPo team at modpo@writing.upenn.edu. During the 10 weeks of the course, you will be guided through poems, video discussions of each poem, and community discussions of each poem. And (unique among open online courses) we offer weekly, interactive live webcasts. Our famed TAs also offer office hours throughout the week. We help arrange meet-ups and in-site study groups. If you are curious about the ModPo team, type "ModPo YouTube introduction" into Google or your favorite search engine, and watch the 20-minute introductory video. You will get an overview of the course and will meet the brilliant TAs, who will be encountering the poems with you all the way to the end. If you use Facebook, join the always-thriving ModPo group: from inside Facebook, search for "Modern & Contemporary American Poetry" and then request to be added as a member. If you have any questions about ModPo, you can post a question to the FB group and you'll receive an almost instant reply. We tweet all year long at @ModPoPenn and you can also find ModPo colleagues using the hashtag #ModPoLive. ModPo is hosted by—and is housed at—the Kelly Writers House at 3805 Locust Walk on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia USA. All ModPo'ers are welcome to visit the Writers House when they are in our area. Our discussions are filmed there. Our live webcasts take place in the famed "Arts Cafe" of the House. To find out what's going on at the Writers House any time, just dial 215-746-POEM.
Who is this class for: ModPo is for those who are new to poetry. And it is for those who have always loved poetry but not yet studied modern and/or experimental poetry. And it is also for poets and critics and teachers who want to see what happens when a community of thousands come together to talk about poems such folks already know well. In short: ModPo will work, in some way, for anyone and everyone!
Created by: University of Pennsylvania
Taught by: Al Filreis, Kelly Professor, Dir. Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, Faculty Dir. Kelly Writers House
| Level | Beginner |
| Language | English |
| How To Pass | Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. |
| User Ratings |
Syllabus
WEEK 1
chapter 1.1 (week 1)—Whitman & Dickinson, two proto-modernists
<p><strong>Week 1 of ModPo 2017 runs from Saturday, September 9 at 9 AM through Sunday, September 17 at 9 AM.</strong> For those doing ModPo on their own or in small groups, the week 1 materials are open and available all year. </p><p>In this first week of our...
9 videos, 7 readings
Graded: on "Possibility" in Emily Dickinson's "I dwell in Possibility"
Graded: on the dash in Emily Dickinson’s “I dwell in Possibility”
WEEK 2
chapter 1.2 (week 2)—Whitmanians & Dickinsonians
<p><b>Week 2 of ModPo 2017 runs from Sunday, September 17 at 9 AM through Sunday, September 24 at 9 AM. </b>For those doing ModPo on their own or in small groups, the week 2 materials are open and available all year.</p><p>During this week, the second half of ...
9 videos, 22 readings
Graded: on Niedecker's "Grandfather advised me"
Graded: on Corman's "It isnt for want"
Graded: writing assignment #1
WEEK 3
chapter 2.1 (week 3)—the rise of poetic modernism: imagism
<p><b>Week 3 of ModPo 2017 runs from Sunday, September 24 at 9 AM through Sunday, October 1 at 9 AM.</b> For those doing ModPo on their own or in small groups, the week 3 materials are open and available all year.</p><p>Modernism in poetry had many beginnings;...
5 videos, 12 readings
Graded: on "In a Station of the Metro"
chapter 2.2 (week 3 cont.)—the rise of poetic modernism: Williams
Now in the second of four parts of our chapter on the rise of modernism—in the second part of week 3—we take a closer look at William Carlos Williams (1883-1963). We met Williams as a “Whitmanian” in chapter 1, the middle figure in a poetic line running from W...
7 videos, 21 readings
Graded: on Williams's "Between Walls"
WEEK 4
chapter 2.3 (week 4)—the rise of poetic modernism: Stein
<p><b>Week 4 of ModPo 2017 runs from Sunday, October 1 at 9 AM through Sunday, October 8 at 9 AM. </b> For those doing ModPo on their own or in small groups, the week 4 materials are open and available all year.</p><p>Gertrude Stein's contribution to modernist...
7 videos, 26 readings
Graded: on "A Carafe, That Is a Blind Glass"
chapter 2.4 (week 4 cont.)—the rise of poetic modernism: modernist edges
"The Baroness" (Elsa von Freytag Loringhoven) was way out there. But because she so intensely embodied modernist experimentalism, our effort to learn something about her life and writing is an apt way, in part, to end our brief introduction to poetic modernism...
3 videos, 11 readings
Graded: on Tzara's "To Make a Dadaist Poem"
Graded: writing assignment #2
WEEK 5
chapter 3 (week 5)—communist poets of the 1930s
<p><b>Week 5 of ModPo 2017 covers chapters 3, 4, 5 & 6 and runs from Sunday, October 8, starting at 9 AM, to Sunday, October 15 at 9 AM (Philadelphia time). </b> For those doing ModPo on their own or in small groups, the week 5 materials are open and available...
2 videos, 4 readings
chapter 4 (week 5 cont.)—the Harlem Renaissance
We continue ModPo week 5 with chapter 4 and Harlem Renaissance poetry. We look at poets whose concept of the relation between traditional stanza form and the content of racist hatred helps us understand the limits of formal experiment. For example, Harlem Rena...
5 videos, 10 readings
Graded: on Claude McCay's "If We Must Die"
chapter 5 (week 5 cont.)—Frost
We continue ModPo week 5 with chapter 5. Robert Frost is widely considered a major modern American poet, but in fact his relationship to modernism is mostly antagonistic. In our series of short chapters featuring poets’ doubts about aspects of the modernist re...
1 video, 4 readings
chapter 6 (week 5 cont.)—formalism of the 1950s
We conclude ModPo week 5 with chapter 6. There are several ways of looking generally at U.S. poetry in the postwar (post-World War II) period, 1945-60. No single generalization will do, but our course implies two main trends. First, there was a retrenchment, a...
4 videos, 2 readings
Graded: on Richard Wilbur's "The Death of a Toad"
WEEK 6
chapter 7 (week 6)—breaking conformity: the beats
<p><b>Week 6 starts at 9 AM (Philadelphia time) on Sunday, October 15, 2017, and ends at 9 AM on Sunday, October 22, 2017.</b>For those doing ModPo on their own or in small groups, the week 6 materials are open and available all year.</p><p>The so-called “New ...
12 videos, 22 readings
Graded: on Ginsberg's “Howl”
Graded: on Robert Creeley's "I Know a Man"
WEEK 7
chapter 8 (week 7)—the New York School
<p><b>Week 7 starts at 9 AM (Philadelphia time) on Sunday, October 22, 2017 and ends at 9 AM on Sunday, October 29.</b> For those doing ModPo on their own or in small groups, the week 7 materials are open and available all year.</p><p>Frank O'Hara, John Ashber...
14 videos, 23 readings
Graded: on O'Hara's "The Day Lady Died"
Graded: on Guest's "20"
Graded: writing assignment #3
WEEK 8
chapter 9.1 (week 8)—some trends in recent poetry: L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E
<p><b>AN OVERVIEW OF THE FINAL THREE WEEKS OF MODPO:</b> We spend our final three weeks surveying three related groupings of experimental poetry, covering recent decades to the present. In week 8 (chapter 9.1), we look at the so-called “Language Poetry” moveme...
10 videos, 29 readings
Graded: on Perelman's "Chronic Meanings"
Graded: on Henijian's "My Life"
WEEK 9
chapter 9.2 (week 9)—some trends in recent poetry: chance
<p><b>Week 9 begins at 9 AM on Sunday, November 5, 2017 and ends at 9 AM on Sunday, November 12.</b> For those doing ModPo on their own or in small groups, the week 9 materials are open and available all year.</p><p>When Jackson Mac Low put a body of language ...
8 videos, 27 readings
Graded: on John Cage
Graded: on Joan Retallack's "Not a Cage"
Graded: writing assignment #4
WEEK 10
chapter 9.3 (week 10)—some trends in recent poetry: conceptualism & unoriginality
<p><b>Week 10, our final week, begins at 9 AM (Philadelphia time) on Sunday, November 12, 2017 and ends at 9 AM on Sunday, November 19.</b> We will then have a final day (November 19-20) to wrap up and say our final words. For those doing ModPo on their own or...
8 videos, 29 readings
Graded: on Goldsmith's "Soliloquy"
Graded: on Morris's "Africa(n)"
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University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (commonly referred to as Penn) is a private university, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. A member of the Ivy League, Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and considers itself to be the first university in the United States with both undergraduate and graduate studies.
Ratings and Reviews
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Wonderful course.
Mind blowing and life-changing. Some of the best teaching I have ever received, in class or in the internet.
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Fantastic community! Have been with ModPo since 2014!