Take a course with Arthur Sze, the Mohr Visiting Poet - submit course application for English 192V!
This Spring, Prof. Arthur Sze will be teaching English 192V: The Occasions of Poetry. We will explore a wide range of possibilities as we practice and develop the craft of writing poems. We will experiment through suggested (not required) weekly writing prompts that draw on ekphrastics, astronomy, translation (knowledge of a foreign language is not required), Asian poetic forms, diction and voice, simultaneity, prose poems, letter poems, and eventually will consider the rich, varied possibilities of the contemporary poetic sequence. We will use one book-length poem as a common text, and additional reading and research will include many other sources. The workshop format will involve a close reading of each student's poems and will also use discussion as a vehicle to consider larger, deeper poetic issues at stake. Hopefully, it will be an exciting journey as we take risks with language and encourage, support, and inspire each other to develop as poets.
Satisfies CW minor's intermediate/advanced poetry req. Students must submit an application to be considered for enrollment. If selected for enrollment, students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Apply here (Stanford login required)
Deadline for applications: 11:59pm on Friday, March 1
Eligibility to apply: currently enrolled Stanford students
Graduate students are welcome to apply, but undergrads will be prioritized for enrollment and waitlist placement
This year's Mohr Visiting Poet is Arthur Sze. A poet, translator, and editor, he is the author of eleven books of poetry, including The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2021); Sight Lines (2019), which won the National Book Award; Compass Rose (2014), a Pulitzer Prize finalist. A recipient of a 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the 2021 Shelley Memorial Award, the Jackson Poetry Prize, a Lannan Literary Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, two National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, a Howard Foundation Fellowship, as well as five grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, Sze was the first poet laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in such journals as The American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, Conjunctions, Harper’s Magazine, The Kenyon Review, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and more. His work has been translated into fourteen languages. A Chancellor Emeritus of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is also a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts.