The Craft of Poetry:
Asian American Experimental Poetry
- Course Number: ENGL 109
- Prerequisites:
Upper-division standing.
- Catalog Course Entry: ENGL 109
- Quarter: Winter 2022
Asian America is the process of recalibrating the legacy of its activist origins, the terms of its panethnic constitution, and the possibilities for interracial solidarity with Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. As pandemic and protest reshape our lives, how can we reimagine Asian America at present? What can poetry offer at this conjuncture, not as a statement of identity but as its enactment? In this workshop-based course, we will read as writers, focusing on the work of poets such as Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Cathy Park Hong, Bhanu Kapil, Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Srikanth Reddy, and Solmaz Sharif, poets who fashion thought experiments, build speculative worlds, rewrite imperial records, and generate new modes of documentation and witness—reformulating the terms of Asian American identity through formal experimentation. Through them, we will learn the craft of poetry and discover the focus, vision, and resources that poetry provides.