BA, Harvard University. Author of twelve books of poetry (under “D. Nurkse”), including the forthcoming A Country of Strangers, Love in the Last Days, The Border Kingdom, Burnt Island, The Fall, The Rules of Paradise, Leaving Xaia, Voices Over Water, and A Night in Brooklyn; poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and in six editions of the Best American Poetry anthology series. Recipient of a literature award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim fellowship, a Whiting Writers’ award, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, two Pushcart Prizes, two awards from The Poetry Foundation, and a finalist for the Forward Prize for best poetry book published in the UK. SLC, 2004–
Previous Courses
Writing
Explorations in the Poetic Voice
Open, Seminar—Fall and Spring
Contemporary poets face a dazzling range of stylistic options. This course is designed to give you a grounding in the practice of modern poetics and to encourage you to innovate. We’ll look at imagery, point of view, tone of voice, meter, pacing, the poetic line, and stanza form. We’ll examine the artistic thinking behind free verse, the sonnet, the ghazal, haiku, and postmodern experimental idioms. We’ll study foundational masters like Gwendolyn Brooks and Elizabeth Bishop, contemporaries like Yusuf Komunyakaa and Terrance Hayes, and writers from radically different cultures. We’ll explore The Vintage Book of African American Poetry and The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry, prose poems, fables, and song lyrics. We’ll discuss how to read poetry as practitioners, how to see and hear what’s on the page. The strong consistent focus will be on students’ own poems. Class members will be encouraged to find their own paths; reading assignments will be mainly individual. The class will be part humanistic workshop, part artistic community, part critical inquiry. Expect to write freely and read voraciously.
Faculty
First-Year Studies: Explorations in the Poetic Voice: Western and Non-Western, Traditional and Experimental
Open, FYS—Year
Contemporary poets face a dazzling range of stylistic options. This course is designed to give you a grounding in the practice of modern poetics and to encourage you to innovate as you understand the roots. We’ll look at prosody, the poetic line, and stanza form. We’ll examine the artistic thinking behind free verse (our main focus), haiku, the sonnet, the ghazal, the ballad, and the blues line. We’ll explore what poets do with voice, tone, and personae—how poets dramatize their insights. We’ll read widely: modern masters like Elizabeth Bishop and Gwendolyn Brooks; contemporaries like Anne Carson and Yusef Komunyakaa; classical poets like George Herbert; and world poets such as Issa, Basho, Pablo Neruda, Aime Cesaire, Anna Akhmatova, and Lorca. We’ll discuss how to read poetry as practitioners and how to hear what’s on the page. The strong constant focus will be on participants’ own poems; class members will be encouraged to follow their own poetic paths and develop their own artistic vocabulary. The class will be part humanistic workshop, part writing community, part critical inquiry. Expect to write freely and read voraciously. Biweekly individual conferences will alternate with class poetry readings, in which we will present our own poems as well as poems of favorite contemporary (or ancient) poets.
Faculty
MFA Writing
Poetry workshop
Workshop—Fall
This course will focus intensively and humanistically on participants' own work. Roughly a third of discussion time will be devoted to classics, and to work that will never be found in the canon. We'll pay close attention to the development of the individual voice, and examine poetics, prosody, issues of form and tone in contemporary and classical poetics, and the radically experimental text. We'll focus on the revision process--how do artists push themselves towards new worlds? How do poets achieve spontaneity without sacrificing rigor? How do texts reconcile clarity and unpredictability? Expect to read widely, to approach texts in new ways, and to create many wild drafts and a finished portfolio of six to ? poems.
Faculty
Poetry Workshop
Workshop—Spring
This course will focus intensively and humanistically on participants' own work. Roughly a third of discussion time will be devoted to classics and to work that will never be found in the canon. We'll pay close attention to the development of the individual voice and examine poetics, prosody, issues of form and tone in contemporary and classical poetics, and the radically experimental text. We'll focus on the revision process: How do artists push themselves toward new worlds? How do poets achieve spontaneity without sacrificing rigor? How do texts reconcile clarity and unpredictability? Expect to read widely, to approach texts in new ways, and to create many wild drafts and a finished portfolio of six to ... poems.
Faculty
The Distinctive Voice in Poetry—Poetry Workshop
Workshop—Spring
This course will focus primarily and humanistically on participants’ own work. Roughly a third of discussion time will be devoted to seminal contemporary poems, with attention to poets of color and marginalized voices. We’ll examine poetics, prosody, issues of form, pace, voicing, and tone in contemporary poetry and in radically experimental texts. We’ll focus on the revision process: How do artists push themselves toward new worlds? How do poets achieve spontaneity without sacrificing rigor? How do texts reconcile clarity and unpredictability? How do poets develop their own exploration tools? How do we go beyond intent? Our emphasis is on craft and individual style, not judgment. Expect to read widely, to approach texts in new ways, and to create many wild drafts and a finished portfolio of six-to-infinity poems.
Faculty
What do you love about teaching at Sarah Lawrence?
The students here view their education as their own artistic creation rather than something they are consuming. At many schools, students use "office hours" to talk to professors about grades. My students come in and say, What was Elizabeth Bishop trying to do in this poem? It makes this a very exciting place to be.
I’m also amazed at the level of student work, and the way students integrate personal information into their writing. I had one student who wrote a whole crown of sonnets—14 sonnets where the last line of one sonnet begins the first line of the next. They were very contemporary, with a jazz context and a speaking voice that shifted from poem to poem. It was a very personal piece of work and a very novel way of producing a series of poems.
What do you hope to teach your students?
To me, the perfect poem is not necessarily an interesting poem. I’m interested in what other teachers might consider mistakes—I think the weaknesses of the poem might be its most original characteristics. So I don’t want students to focus too much on writing perfect poems. I want students to read voraciously, expand their knowledge of poetry, and feel confident in sharing their poetry with other people. I also want to help students develop a humanistic writing process, where writing—even if it is about something painful or horrible—is the part of your life that you most look forward to.