Reading and Writing Poetry

Literature includes a wide range of genres, e.g. poem, novel, short story, drama,

fairy tale and so on. However, “poem” is of particular important in countries, like

ours, where there is a long tradition of oral literature. This course focuses on

poetry, which can be defined as “the art of expressing the depth of emotions and

thoughts with a limited number of words”. In this course, we will start with

qualities of a good poem, and then criticize examples of poetry collected from

daily papers and magazines. Then we will try to write our own poems. After

making discussions on and revising the poems, we plan to compile and publish

them at Anadolu University’s publishing house to make them available for

Turkish readers.

During this four-week course, we will help learners develop basic knowledge and

skills required to read and evaluate poems with a literary approach and write

poems keeping literary rules in mind. The course entails intensive interaction with

the instructor. Such interaction will be synchronous once a week (in the virtual

classroom), and asynchronous whenever and wherever the course participant

wants. The course plan is as follows:

Week 1.

Introduction to the course (synchronous)

Qualities of a good poem (asynchronous)

End-of- the-week meeting (synchronous)

Week 2.

Poetry reading exercises (asynchronous)

End-of- the-week meeting (synchronous)

Week 3.

Introduction to poem writing (asynchronous)

End-of- the-week meeting (synchronous)

Week 4.

Poem writing exercises (asynchronous)

End-of- the-week meeting (synchronous)