Get Inspired!: Poems and Poets to Light Up Your Writing

Welcome to the Course!

Thank you for jumping into Get Inspired!: Poems and Poets to Light Up Your Writing. This is a course you can do on your own and according to your own timeline. To give you a better sense of how to get the most out of the course, here’s some considerations.

Each module features three poets: a state poet laureate past or present, a U.S. or tribal poet laureate, and a historic poet who embodied the essence of his/her/their time and place in poetry. As such, in each module, you’ll find an audio craft lecture, and, for each of the three poets: photographs and brief descriptions of their lives and work, and ample links, including some to video or audio recordings of the poet or their work.

For each module, you’ll find a craft lecture, and works by each of that module’s three poets.

The state poets laureate have been gracious enough to also share with us handouts on the craft and passion of writing, and writing approaches and/or exercises to consider, and special thanks for all of them for contributing their expertise and guidance for writing powerful poetry.

In more detail, you’ll find:

1. One state poet laureate past or present sharing their poetry (with writing prompts at the end of each poem), writing exercises and/or handouts on the writing life, and lots of links, including video and/or audio. There’s also a summary of the poet’s life and work.
2. One U.S. poet laureate’s life and work in summary, plus a bundle of their poems and writing prompts, and lots of links to more background, videos and/or audios, articles and/or interviews.
3. One historic American poet who brings to the course ground-breaking poetics and powerful poetry: their life and work in summary, plus a bundle of their poems and writing prompts, and lots of links to more background, videos and/or audios, articles and/or interviews.

Twelve Modules: 37 Poets

• Module One: State Poet Laureate: Marilyn L. Taylor, Historic Poet: Walt Whitman, U.S Poet Laureate: W.S. Merwin
• Module Two: State Poet Laureate: Dick Allen, Historic Poet: Emily Dickinson, U.S. Poet Laureate: William Stafford
• Module Three: State Poet Laureate: Sue Brennan Walker, Historic Poet: Langston Hughes, U.S. Poet Laureate: Gwendolyn Brooks
• Module Four: State Poet: Laureate William Trowbridge, Historic Poet: Muriel Rukeyser, U.S. Poet Laureate: Robert Penn Warren
• Module Five: State Poet Laureate: Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Historic Poet: Grace Paley, U.S. Poet Laureate: Mark Strand
• Module Six: State Poet Laureate: Joyce Brinkman, Historic Poet: Adrienne Rich, U.S. Poet Laureate: Juan Felipe Herrera
• Module Seven: State Poet Laureate: Denise Low, Historic Poet: Wendell Berry, U.S. Poet Laureate: Rita Dove
• Module Eight: State Poet Laureate: David Romtvedt, Historic Poet: Sharon Olds, Navajo Poet Laureate: Luci Tapahonso
• Module Nine: State Poet Laureate: Kimberly Blaeser, Historic Poet: Yusef Komunyakaa, Tribal Poet: Joy Harjo
• Module Ten: State Poet Laureate: Marjory Wentworth, Historic Poet: Audre Lorde, Tribal Poet Laureate: Elizabeth Woody
• Module Eleven: State Poet Laureate: JoAnn Balingit, Historic Poet: Li-Young Lee, U.S. Poet Laureate: Natasha Trethewey
• Module Twelve: State Poet Laureate: Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Historic Poet: Richard Blanco, U.S. Poet Laureate: Tracy K. Smith, Bonus Poet: Naomi Shihab Nye

How to Approach This Course

This is a self-paced course, which means you get to do on your own schedule. At the same time, you might find more synergy and organic direction by considering each unit altogether, perhaps spending a week per unit to build up momentum in your writing and exploration of poetry and poets.

Consider spending one week per unit to build up momentum in your writing and exploration of poetry and poets.

While you are free to do this course at whatever pace fits you, here are some suggestions to consider:

• Pace Yourself: Do a unit each week to get a rhythm going. Tell yourself that in 12 weeks you’ll explore a bunch of new poets and write a batch of new poems.
• Read: give yourself time to peruse some of the links for the three (or four) featured poets. 
• Write: At the bottom of each unit’s window, you’ll find three documents to download on each of the module’s poets that features a small collection (3-7) poems with writing prompts to try out, plus there’s a handout from the state poet laureate (you can download all these PDFs). Please aim toward the prompts and poems that speak most to you at this moment, and feel free to create your own prompts by:
  1. Riffing off a line or phrase in a poem as your title or first line, then seeing where you are.
  2. Writing dialogue poems between yourself and part of a poem (giving credit of course to the poet and distinguishing what you’re quoting).
  3. Looking at how the poem is structures – long or short lines? Rhyme or not? Repeated phrases or phrasing? — and write your own poem using an element (or two) of that structure.
  4. Make a list of 10 words in a poem that jump out at you, and then write a poem that incorporates those words.
• Find Your Place: It helps to write in the same place or places regularly because once we settle in in that particular chair or at that desk or on that porch, your body will remind you that this is where you write.
• Find Your Time: Some people find their writing mojo shows up more at certain times in the day, such as morning or evenings. Follow your own rhythm.
• Important Note: Remind yourself that writing is not a competitive sport but instead a practice. You’re just practicing to see what comes, and even if you don’t end up doing more with a particular poem you draft, that time is never wasted: it primes the pump for more writing to come and helps you further develop your writing possibilities.

This is also a course you can return to over time, trying out new writing prompts, and investigating more poetry of these writers and other writers they lead you to, so save all your downloaded PDFs of the exercises, and if you wish, you can copy and paste each module’s window of information and links into a document you can return to over time.

A Word on the Political as the Personal and Vice-Versa

When it comes to what’s political and what’s personal, the lines get blurry. The personal is political, and the political is personal, as Carol Hanisch popularized for the women’s movement, and beyond. Our lives constantly show us the very intimate ramifications of political decisions and policies, whether it’s the hard decisions we have to make about health care because of federal funding cuts, or the hard-won struggle for LGTB marriage. Likewise, the choices we make about how to live have profound political consequences, from what foods we ingest, which impact food production, to our work in the world.

In a sense, changing anything in ourselves, our communities, and our cultures means tilting the mythologies defining our lives: the dominant cultural narratives (to paraphrase Roland Barthes) that tell us who we are. I see such myths are concentric circles: the outer-most circle contain our cultural myths about who we’re supposed to be as men, women, trans, rich, poor, of color, white, able-bodies or not. Within that circle is how we’re seen by our communities: what role we take on and are assigned in our workplaces, towns, and among our peeps. There’s also a circle of myths speaking of how we see ourselves and are seen in our families, whether we’re the helper or the rainbow sheep. Finally, at the center, there are the myths we tell ourselves about what we can and can’t do, and who we are and aren’t. By grappling with these stories and symbols, we can revise our lives to be more authentic and guide our political thinking and action to be more effective. In other words, we can get into the control rooms of mythologies that limit and silence us, and tilt the stories toward greater and healthier transformation. As Muriel Rukeyser writes, “No more masks! No more mythologies!”

In choosing poets who have grappled with getting into the control room of our culture, I’ve chosen to bring in people who write about a wide spectrum of topics, from the very embodied explorations of love and aging to the rush-the-streets manifestos of mad farmers and others. I present these poems and prompts to be as inclusive as possible of however you define social transformation, activism, politics, and other big terms at the center of speaking truth to power.

Thank you so much for immersing yourself in the powerful poetry of so many writers, including you!