Button University: Michael Lee Vikre Workshop

Metaphor, Memory and Worldmaking

In this class, we will examine and write poetry through the central vehicle of the metaphor. In so doing, we will examine its capacious function in shaping our individual, collective and national imaginations, memories and, consequently, the ways in which our world(s) is invented rhetorically while being experienced/lived physically. In this way, we will be reading and investigating texts which are easily and classically conceived of as “poems” as well as expanding how we think of poetry and where we imagine poetry takes place. With equal emphasis on lecture, critical analysis, and generative writing, students can expect to “receive” information in a classical academic sense while also being expected to read deeply and well, engage collaboratively in small group work during class, and write copiously (both in class and on their own time). This course will not only illuminate the many ways metaphors function and expand a student’s understanding of their role in poetry and poetry’s role in worldmaking, it will allow students to heighten their relationship to language and, by extension, their subject matter and the process of translating their world(s) for their readers.