Reading Poetry

Do you find reading poetry challenging? Or fascinating? Or both? Never enjoyed it very much? Welcome aboard! This six-week, 90-minute, in-person course (we’ll shift to zoom if the weather doesn’t cooperate on a given week) will examine how poems work. Exploring such key elements as figurative language, structure, meter and sound, we’ll see how poets use language to create their art. This will be a discussion-based course: we’ll begin with some representative types of poems from a range of poets, old and new, men and women. We’ll then branch out to include your favorites, as time allows. The overall goal is to provide you with the skills to enjoy poetry of all kinds in a fresh way, and, perhaps, to appreciate more deeply what author (and Midcoast Senior College Instructor) David Spurr calls “the consolation of poetry.”

Suggested reading: Spurr, David, The Consolation of Poetry, ISBN 978-3034342117

John Haile is a retired secondary school teacher and administrator. He has taught several courses for Midcoast Senior College.