Rebel Poets: Verses of Dissent

3 units

From the of-the-rough Walt Whitman to the censored Anna Akhmatova, poets have long rebelled against authority--whether it be sociopolitical, academic, or the literary traditions of their times. This all-online course will examine an eclectic array of rebellious verse by Americans and, on occasion, their global counterparts. Literary greats like Emily Dickinson, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Gertrude Stein, and other moderns will be paired with contemporary voices such as Lyn Hejinian, Claudia Rankine, and Thomas Sayers Ellis. Poets often excluded from the canon, such as Patti Smith, Saul Williams, and Taylor Mali, will be considered in connection to a poetry thriving outside the ivory tower. Rejecting monolithic conceptions of dissent, we shall consider the term rebel beyond its immediate connotations to include matters of experimentation with voice and form. Need a rebellious poem be by a rebel poet? What constitutes poetic dissent, and how can this change over time?