Latinx Poetry Now

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This literature course offers an opportunity to read, discuss, and write about a generous sampling of contemporary American poetry by living Latinx poets, utilizing as its principal text the anthology, The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry. There will also be a special module on Latinx poetry inspired by Latinx art, with particular attention to the Smithsonian American Art Museum's exhibit: "Our America: the Latino Presence in American Art." We will also be relying significantly on a series of online resources, including video interviews with Latinx poets conducted here at Notre Dame. We will focus mainly on mid-career writers, discovering and examining some of the themes that characterize Latinx poetry. A number of the poets who we'll be reading will also be special guests, via ZOOM, at various points during the semester: we'll get to ask them questions, and watch and hear them read poems. We'll also encounter poems that challenge what one might expect when one hears the term, "Latinx poetry" (and we'll talk about that "x").