Contemporary Religious and LDS Poetry

By Lance Larsen

To provide an historical overview of postmodern and contemporary poetry.

To sharpen through discussion and writing your analytical and evaluative skills.

To provide a detailed reading of the work of eight contemporary religious poets (four of them LDS)

To make you better readers of both fixed form and free verse poetry by concentrating on poetic elements such as rhyme, rhythm, meter, syntax, diction, style, enjambment, irony, imagery, symbol, and persona.

To help you apply a variety of critical approaches and reading strategies (formalist, historical, sociological, biographical, psychological, archetypal, feminist, post-structuralist, etc.) to contemporary poetry.

To emphasize the ethical responsibilities of reading.

To have a walloping good time.

“To untie [ourselves], to do penance and disappear / Through the upper right-hand corner of things, to say grace.” (Charles Wright).