Eccentric Disciplines: Craft as Meaning with Michael Waters (via Zoom)

Keeping in mind that how something is said is as least as important as what is said, this class will focus on various aspects of craft, including types of rhyme, metrical and non-metrical cadences, stanzaic scaffoldings, syllabic structures, lineation, and levels of diction, all of which can be used to convey and enhance meaning in a poem. We’ll look briefly but closely at poems by Lucille Clifton, William Carlos Williams, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Hayden and others for examples of craft that move each work beyond simple narration. Anticipate a fast-moving, lively, and useful class.

Michael Waters has published fourteen books of poetry, most recently Sinnerman (Etruscan Press, 2023), Caw (BOA Editions, 2020), and The Dean of Discipline (U Pittsburgh P, 2018). Pagan Sky: New & Selected Poems 2000-2025 is forthcoming from BOA Editions in 2026. Darling Vulgarity (BOA Editions, 2006) was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and Parthenopi: New and Selected Poems (BOA Editions, 2001) was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize. The Bicycle and the Soul: Prose on Poetry appeared from Tiger Bark Press in 2024. He has co-edited several anthologies, including Border Lines: Poems of Migration (Knopf, 2020), Reel Verse: Poems About the Movies (Knopf, 2019), Contemporary American Poetry (Houghton Mifflin, 2006), and Perfect in Their Art: Poems on Boxing from Homer to Ali (Southern Illinois UP, 2003). His poems have appeared in numerous anthologies, including five editions of The Pushcart Prize and in Best American Poetry 2024. Waters has chaired the poetry panel of the National Book Awards. A 2017 Guggenheim Fellow, he has also been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Fulbright Foundation, MD State Arts Council and NJ State Council on the Arts, and residency fellowships from Yaddo, MacDowell, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Rockvale Writers’ Colony, St. James Cavalier Centre (Malta), Tyrone Guthrie Centre (Ireland), and Chateau de Lavigny (Switzerland). Waters lives without a cell phone in Ocean, NJ.