Eugenia Leigh

In this course, we will read and thoroughly engage with one contemporary debut collection of poetry per week to dissect each book until we understand its anatomy. We will examine everything from the poet’s voice(s) to what makes an effective first poem and last poem to the precision behind a book’s structure and sequencing. Most importantly, we will cultivate a practice of asking questions of these books to seek answers that guide our own books in the making: How do collections touching on numerous topics hold the reader with a guiding thread? How do collections navigating a singular obsession or central narrative incorporate moments of reprieve or surprise for the reader? What is a book’s relationship to the reader in the first place? What is the difference between a middle poem that feels like filler versus a middle poem that makes the collection fuller? How do we balance experimentation with conventionally textual poems? How do we discern what is essential to our collections and what we need to let go? As we scrutinize and learn from an array of debut poetry collections such as Seam by Tarfia Faizullah, Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco by K. Iver, Ghost Of by Diana Khoi Nguyen, Concentrate by Courtney Faye Taylor, Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love by Keith S. Wilson, and others, we will generate new poems with our manuscripts in mind while holding those manuscripts loosely enough to let them evolve with our discoveries. The course will also be a practical space to discuss strategies for first-book submissions and answer questions about publishing. Our end goal is to demystify what makes a memorable debut collection and leave eager to work on our own books.