The Voice of Poetry

This course offers an encounter with poetry beyond appreciation, recognizing poems as works of art created to communicate something powerful and important: poetry as a form of experience, intimately personal as well as cultural. Taking inspiration from the Favorite Poem Project, this course emphasizes the vocal nature of poetry, and the physical experience of a poem as a comparison, or even a model, for other ways of speaking, writing, and thinking. Professor Emeritus and former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky joins the class for guest lectures. Effective Fall 2026, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation, Oral and/or Signed Communication.