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. These seminars are made possible with the generous support of Lawrence and Nancy Mohr.

The poet also holds a public reading and colloquium. For dates, times, and locations of their scheduled readings and colloquiums, visit our Events page.

English 192V The Occasions of Poetry: Formal Experimentations

• Offered: Spring 2023

• Instructor: Professor Seuss

• Satisfies the Intermediate/Advanced Poetry requirement

• Enrollment granted on priority basis. To be considered for enrollment, please submit the Spring 2023 Course Preference Form.

In this generative and habit-challenging course, we will study and practice a wide range of poetic forms, and the ways in which contemporary American poets have adopted, adapted, and subverted them for their own provocative purposes. We will explore Allen Ginsberg’s revision of the Japanese haiku into the American Sentence, and other iterations of syllabic verse; litanies and lists, including the abecedarian; reiterative forms, like the pantoum, sestina, ghazal, and Terrance Hayes’ golden shovel; the sonnet, and its wild variations, from Wanda Coleman’s jazz sonnets to Trevor Ketner’s divinations and Jericho Brown’s duplexes; the two-voiced contrapuntal poem; and the failed/broken/unfinished forms of Jane Huffman. In experimenting with form, we will develop the superpowers of compression, musicality, and improvisation in accessing our truest subjects, and building poems of exuberant artfulness. We will read our new poems out loud, provide and receive commentary as needed, and build toward an energetic poetry community.