19671 - Poems for the Joys and Sorrows of Life’s Journey

Course Overview

This course will explore contemporary poems that deal with the full range of life’s experiences, from the ups and downs of ordinary living to the brilliant vistas from the mountaintop.

A good poem can be a mirror, a window, a shooting star or a moment of bliss. A poem can be like a firecracker when a new insight about life is revealed.  A poem can leap like a billy goat in the spring. All of us, I dare say, have had to cope with the doldrums or what some call “melancholy.” It helps to experience how skillful poets have escaped from the caves of darkness into light, have learned the lessons lurking in the shadows behind the cobwebs in the basement.  Sometimes we need the imagination to cope with mysteries like birth, love, failure, and death.

This course is NOT about a psychological malady called “depression,” which often calls for professional therapy. Rather writers like Mary Oliver, Rainer Maria Rilke, Parker J. Palmer, Sylvia Plath, William Stafford, Anne Sexton, Robinson Jeffers and many others have transformed “the blues” into a rainbow of sparkling miracles and visions of the future.

Through assignments and class discussions we will look for ways that our lives might be changed and enriched by excellent poems.