The Program in Poetry and Poetics is overseen by an ad-hoc committee of faculty from various departments. It draws together some of the resources at the University currently devoted to the teaching and study of poetry and poetics. The term "poetics" is here meant to refer to the analysis of the art of poetry, especially but not exclusively to close examination of the technical features of the art. The University offers courses devoted to the writing of poems, courses in the history of poetry from different periods and in different languages, and courses that focus on particular poetic styles. The aim of the Program is to coordinate our various approaches and practices.

The main frameworks for the teaching of poetry are historical and formal, although courses in the theory of poetry may not confine themselves to such considerations. We encourage critical writing about poetry and the teaching of poetry that move from one framework to another, that look for ways in which a poem's formal features engage historical, political, theoretical or philosophical concerns. The discussions enabled by the Program are intended to help students at all levels to pursue work that crosses disciplines and discourses such as those mentioned here. The Program also supports collaboration among faculty members in the form, for example, of team-taught courses, conferences, lecture series, and the Poetics Workshop.

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