Sensual and emotionally powerful, American poetry of the body explores living and knowing through physical, bodily experience. From Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric” to contemporary spoken word performances, body poems move us through the strangeness and familiarity of embodiment, voicing the manifold discomforts, pains, pleasures, and ecstasies of living in and through bodies. We’ll trace a number of recurring themes: the relationship between body and mind, female embodiment, queer bodies, race, sexuality, disability, illness and medicine, mortality, appetite, and the poem itself as a body.  Poets include Whitman, Ama Codjoe, Rita Dove, Ada Limón, Claudia Rankine, Ocean Vuong, Tyehimba Jess,  Ina Cariño, Max Ritvo, Laurie Lambeth, Chen Chen, and Danez Smith. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 25

Crosslisted Courses: AMST 248

Prerequisites: None.

Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring