A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

Elise Paschen

Assistant Professor, Adjunct

Bio

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Writing (1999). BA, 1982, Harvard University; MPhil, 1984, DPhil, 1988, Oxford University. Books: The Nightlife; Bestiary; Infidelities; Houses: Coasts. Periodicals and Anthologies: The New Yorker; The New Republic; The Nation; The Hudson Review; Ploughshares; Poetry Magazine; A Formal Feeling Comes: Poems in Form by Contemporary Women; Reinventing the Enemy's Language: Contemporary Native Women's Writings. Edited: The Eloquent Poem; Poetry Speaks to Children; Poetry Speaks Who I Am; The Harvard Advocate. Co-edited: Poetry in Motion: 100 Poems from the Subways & Buses; Poetry Speaks; Poetry Speaks Expanded; Poetry in Motion from Coast to Coast; Oxford Poetry. Co-founder: Poetry in Motion; Oxford Poetry. Former Executive Director: Poetry Society of America. Awards: Rupert Costo Chair in American Indian Affairs Medal; The Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize; The Frances Allen Fellowship; The Lloyd McKim Garrison Medal.

 

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

In this generative seminar you will produce a new poem a week based on writing prompts as well as discuss poems and their genesis by contemporary poets included in The Eloquent Poem: 128 Contemporary Poems and Their Making. This anthology is inspired by classes Paschen has taught at SAIC and includes the work of our most influential contemporary poets such as Joy Harjo, Cornelius Eady, Martin Espada, Billy Collins, Kimiko Hahn and Marilyn Nelson, as well as poems by debut writers, including former SAIC students. Your weekly writing prompts will include aubades & nocturnes, ars poeticas, litanies, ekphrasis, prose poems, mirror poems, concrete poems and collage poems. The class is open to students exploring any genre.

Class Number

1436

Credits

3

Description

In this workshop you will explore the notion of form and discover how, by writing in various verse structures, you may excavate fresh terrain in your work. How is the conflict between flight and confinement built into a form? What happens when a contemporary poet, such as Terrance Hayes, chooses a fourteen-line Italian sonnet adapted by the poets of the English Renaissance? Students will experiment with traditional verse structures such as villanelles, ghazals and sonnets and play with newly-invented forms such as the Golden Shovel. Readings from a wide range of poets from the 20th and 21st centuries will include Elizabeth Bishop, Gwendolyn Brooks, Agha Shahid Ali, Joy Harjo, Natasha Trethewey, Kimiko Hahn, Terrance Hayes, and Layli Long Soldier. Each week you will write a new poem which will be discussed in the workshop. For the final class, you will present at least six pieces you have written during the course of the semester. This class welcomes students exploring any genre.

Class Number

2124

Credits

3