C R E AT I V E W R I T I N G Lyric Life: Write Poems That Challenge the Everyday Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) —Walt Whitman P oetry happens in the routine and contradictions of daily life. Like Whitman, we all contain multitudes. Poems allow us to perceive what’s beautiful in our ordinary existence and find what is heartening within devastation. This course will emphasize the writer’s task of transforming one’s feelings, memories, and questions into poetry. We will ask ourselves: How do we convert experience into language that can challenge, console, and embolden us to view the world anew? We will test the capacities of the tools of poetry—especially image, repetition, and form—to hold our encounters with the world. To work toward this, we will study poems and essays by poets such as Pablo Neruda, Nikky Finney, Robert Hayden, and Tracy K. Smith, among others, for the manner in which they can expand one small detail of their daily lives into a recital of song and surprise. We will use these readings, and weekly poetic exercises, as models for how to successfully transform the contradictions and mundane aspects of life into poetry. Students will turn in a total of five poems or lyric experiments, putting them up for workshop and instructor feedback. auSt i n a r au jo Stegner Fellow in Poetry, Stanford Austin Araujo’s work has appeared in Poetry, TriQuarterly, The Adroit Journal, The Missouri Review, Shenandoah, Memorious, Four Way Review, and The Rumpus, among others. He has taught creative writing at Indiana University and Stanford. He received an MFA in poetry from Indiana University, where he was awarded an Academy of American Poets Prize. POET 40 W 10 weeks, June 26 – September 1 3 units, $955 Limit: 17 Refund Deadline: June 29 Course Format: Flex Online Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840), Spanish iris. Original from Biodiversity Heritage Library. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel. Learn more about our new Continuing Studies course “Drawing Flowers: An Introduction to Botanical Art” (page 16). 59 R EGIS T R AT IO N F O R AL L C O UR S ES B EGINS ON MONDAY, MAY 22, AT 8:30 A M (P T ) R EGIS T ER O NL INE AT C O NT INUINGSTU DIES.STA NFORD.EDU