- Online
- $695
This course is designed for writers of all skill levels looking to cultivate a sustainable poetry practice. How might the rhythms of everyday life inform and propel our poetry towards new possibilities? How can we build strategies and skills to deepen our creative curiosity and our sense of play on the page?
In this course, produce poetic drafts and revisions while you explore foundational poetry techniques. Write from generative prompts, participate in engaging craft conversations, and enjoy revision experiments that forge a deeper poetic attention as you strengthen your core writing skills. This course is an opportunity to let go of the inner critic and embrace poetic play and possibility.
Note: This is a sibling course to Voice and Vulnerability: Writing One-of-a-Kind Poems. The courses are built to complement one another and can be taken as standalones or in any order.
By the end of the course, you will be able to:
- Develop strategies for sustaining a poetic practice through drafting, revision and reflection
- Cultivate a sense of poetic play and curiosity that supports taking creative risk in your writing
- Experiment with image, metaphor, form and sound in your writing
- Use an inquiry-based approach to reading and editing poetry
- Generate original drafts and refine your work using revision strategies and editorial feedback
- Develop and share creative insights and perspectives with confidence
Course outline
Week 1: Poetry is everywhere – Journaling as poetic practice
Week 2: The poetic draft – Image and metaphor
Week 3: Shaping your poem – Line breaks and form
Week 4: Foundations of sound in poetry
Week 5: Experiments in revision – Locating the logic of your poem
Week 6: Connections and community – Sustaining a poetic practice
Instructor
Selina Boan is a white-nehiyaw (Cree) writer, beadwork artist and educator living on the traditional, unceded territories of thexʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-waututh), and sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) peoples. Her debut poetry collection, Undoing Hours won the 2022 Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the Indigenous Voices Award for Published Poetry in English. Her work has been published widely, including The Best Canadian Poetry 2020. She is a poetry editor for CV2 Magazine.
How am I assessed?
This course is marked complete/incomplete. To receive a completion record, you need to submit at least 80% of the required assignments and participate in the weekly discussion forums.
Your instructor provides written feedback on all discussion forums and writing exercises, and personalized recorded feedback on your final manuscript. You will also receive peer feedback through the weekly discussion forums and writing exercises.
Record of completion
Students who have successfully completed a course can access completion documents two weeks after the course ends. Course completion means 80% attendance and/or 80% completion of mandatory assignments.
Expected effort
Expect to spend three to four hours per week completing coursework. This includes reading the weekly written and recorded lecture, completing the writing exercise, participating in the discussion forum, and responding to at least two classmates each week. Students who attend optional weekly office hours should add an additional hour.
Technology requirements
To take this course, and for the best experience, we recommend you have access to:
- an email account
- a computer or laptop using Windows or macOS or a tablet
- the latest version of a web browser (or previous major version release)
- a reliable internet connection.
For virtual office hours, you’ll also need:
- a video camera and microphone.
One day before the start of your course, we’ll email you step-by-step instructions for accessing your course.
Course format
This course is 100% online and instructor supported with a weekly option Zoom session (schedule TBD). Course work is done independently and at your own pace within deadlines set by your instructor. A new module is released each week. Log in anytime to your course to access the lessons as they become available.
This course offers optional weekly optional Zoom session. Join your instructor and classmates to discuss course materials and assignments, receive feedback and ask questions.
Online materials will be available for three weeks after the course ends, after which time you will no longer be able to access the course.
