What is a poem that doesn’t have any words? A poem that is struggling to depart the page? A poem that challenges us to rethink “poetry” altogether? This class serves as an overview of some of the strangest and wildest poetries from 1886 to the present, including concrete, asemic, olfactory, clown, and digital, as well as more traditional lineated forms. Poets and artists covered include Aram Saroyan, Jeanne Ranney Ranz, Tina Darragh, Alexis Almeida, Jimin Seo, N.H. Pritchard, Henry Goldkamp, and Cody-Rose Clevidence.

Students will be given time to write and share their own work, and they will come away from the class with prompts and strategies for breaking ground on their own experimental poetry projects.

This class is taught by a graduate student in the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s MFA Program in Creative Writing.