CRWT 40.04 Remains, Ruin, Repair, and Rapture
Remains, Ruin, Repair and Rapture: Trends in Urban Contemporary Poetry from Detroit to Krakow
In the center of Detroit, Michigan sits the completely enclosed, far smaller city of Hamtramck, with its own mayor, police department, fire department and history of generations of Polish immigrants. Two urban centers connected by borders and across borders by rich poetries that place pressure upon stereotypes of the "urban."
In this course, we will consider essays, poetry and interviews that dare interrogate and upturn common assumptions around the demographics and expectations of urban centers and the arts and letters that rise from them. We will write critical as well as creative responses to the readings.We will resist "outside" definitions and privilege the self-defining texts of the authors we study who are writing from their experiences within these sites of growth and failings, allegiances and loss, flight and fury. Readings will include work by: Jacek Dehnel, Francine Harris, Jamaal May, Matthew Olzmann, and Adam Zagajewski among others
Instructor
Francis
Department-Specific Course Categories
Course Group III (formerly ENGL 87.03)