Led by Joe Milazzo, author of the novel Crepuscule W/ Nellie, two volumes of poetry — The Habiliments and Of All Places In This Place Of All Places — and several chapbooks (most recently, homeopathy for the singularity). His work has appeared or will soon appear in Black Warrior Review, BOMB, The Dallas Morning News, Denver Quarterly, Fence, Prelude, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere.

Learn more about Joe in our Meet the Teaching Artist series.

What is poetic imagery? From one perspective, it is the activation of imaginary sensory apparatuses. The reader encounters a reference to a visual, auditory, olfactory, or tactile phenomenon and, in their own mind, "perceives" the reference as though it were an object.

In this intensive generative seminar, we will discuss the value such concrete imagery brings to poetry. We will explore our own individual sensory orientations, discuss the implications and entailments of each of the five senses, and experiment with creating new work around (and out of) our own sensory experiences.

Through in-class readings, shared writing exercises, and traditional workshop, we will focus on how to make our writing powerfully sensual, vivid, and deeply connected to one of the fundamental modalities of human being.

COURSE OUTLINE:

• Week 1 - Introduction: Basics of Human Perception and the Sensory Apparatus
• Week 2 - The Poet’s Relationship to The Senses
• Week 3 - Imagery in Poetry
• Week 4 - Application: Presentation of Original Writing and Workshop

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• We will identify our individual sensory orientations and achieve a deeper understanding of how that orientation influences our poetic production.
• We will broaden our notion of what constitutes imagery within a poetic context.
• We will become more attuned to the range and diversity of sensory experience poems can activate.
• We will generate new poems during in-class writing sessions.
• We will gain experience reading poetry (our own, by others) in front of a supportive audience of our peers.
• We will hone our workshopping skills by focusing our attention how poems deploy sensory information to make meaning and curate experiences.
• We will leave this course with a set of new tools we can employ in sustaining our independent writing practices.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE: