Free online poetry courses

This post was originally published on 12 February 2015 but I’m going to keep adding to it as I hear of new courses.

Here are the courses with links to registration forms and blurb from each site.  I might see some of you in class!

NEW! Ten Premodern Poems by Women   – Stanford University – March 31 – June 9 Course Staff: Professor Eavan Boland, Dr. Irena Yamboliev, Dr. Kenneth Ligda.

In this course, we will read ten significant premodern poems by women. We have chosen each poem to give you a sense of its structure as a poem and its importance as a form in its time. This course also reveals the roots each poem has in history, in slavery, in conventional thought and unorthodox opinion. Through the introductions to the poems, forum discussions with your fellow participants, and talks by Professor Boland and practicing poets and scholars, we will learn about how poets have fashioned life experience into verse, how to discuss poetry, and what poetry means for each of us today.

How Writers Write Poetry – University of Iowa – starts March 23rd 2015

How Writers Write Poetry 2015, a seven-week course beginning on March 23, 2015, offers an interactive progression through the principles and practice of writing poetry. The course presents a curated collection of short, intimate talks on craft by two dozen acclaimed poets writing in English

ModPo – (Modern & Contemporary American Poetry) University of Pennsylvania – starts September 2015

ModPo is a fast-paced introduction to modern and contemporary U.S. poetry, with an emphasis on experimental verse, from Dickinson and Whitman to the present. Participants (who need no prior experience with poetry) will learn how to read poems that are supposedly “difficult.”

Writing 201: Poetry – WordPress – runs February 16 – 27 Writing 201:

Our first poetry-focused course. Another two-week course, we’ll offer daily doses of inspiration and explore poetic devices and forms, from similes and limericks to enjambment and sonnets. Poets of all styles, outlooks, and backgrounds are welcome (including those who have none).