Mohr Visiting Poets

Each year, the Creative Writing Program welcomes a distinguished poet to teach a Stanford writing seminar to undergraduates. These unique classes are kept small--limited to no more than 15 students--and they focus on a subject of the poet's expertise and choosing. The poet also holds a public reading and colloquium. These seminars and events are made possible with the generous support of Lawrence and Nancy Mohr.

English 192V Writing Poetry in the Age of the Moving Picture

• Offered: Spring 2026

• Instructor: Prof. Powell

• Satisfies the intermediate/advanced poetry requirement

• Enrollment granted on priority basis. To be considered for enrollment, please submit the Course Preference Form

What does “image” mean for the 21st century writer of poems, a century of swirling information and vast volumes of entertainment spilling out into the public places. To contemplate this, we’ll sort of retrace the footsteps of image as it was thought of by writers of times different than ours. Was an image ever a “quiet” thing or did its conjuring in words always disrupt the conscious in some way…either awakening it or dulling it. Remember the images that books put into your heads when they were read to you. Were you surprised by them, contented by them…do they linger still for you when you summon them. Readings this term are meant to build our conceptions of what an image was, is, and can be. Early filmmakers will also guide us up to the gate of the now. This is all backdrop scenery for conversations we’ll have in class, followed by in-class writing time, followed by readings and discussions of your work. Let’s not even call it work. It is play, of a kind that allows us to put words into the air and let them invoke and evoke. But we will take our play seriously and in good company, creating an imaginarium by supporting and encouraging one another. This is a safe realm where images may be conjured, studied, discussed, revised, abandoned, reclaimed, celebrated and enjoyed for the distraction they allow us as well as the truth or fiction that made them. We will also meditate deeply on how to put poetry into the now and also the ever. Already the light in that magic lantern is flickering, as the film rolls…