PROFESSOR ROBERT PINSKY: Poetry can't create emotion

as immediately and reliably as music.

Poetry can't present an image as dazzling and immediate as video,

or film.

Poetry sometimes persuades, but poetry can't persuade as forcefully

as a really skillful preacher or politician.

What poetry can do is, come out of each person's somatic, physical imagination.

The medium for a poem is your voice.

STUDENT 1: I don't really think that you can imagine a world without poetry.

It's one of the oldest forms of communication that we've had.

STUDENT 2: To me, poetry is just built into language so tightly.

STUDENT 3: It can be abstract, or it can be literal.

And it can be scientific, or not.

But every culture has some way of communicating

in that structured language.

PROFESSOR ROBERT PINSKY: You're being elevated

above and beyond a conventional, automatic relation to the world.

You're going somewhere else.

The approach of this course is not to provide you

with a lot of classifications, terminologies, schools.

The focus of this course will be on the nature of the art

and the components of the art-- as an art.

STUDENT 4: To make a really great poem, or piece of art,

you don't just go straight for what you're shooting at.

You actually sort of want to see it from all the different angles.

STUDENT 5: Each poet is developing their own country, their own language.

And then we need to take that time to dig in to Andrew Marvell.

And to dig in to Marianne Moore.

And develop those specific idioms.

PROFESSOR ROBERT PINSKY: To understand an art,

you have to understand not only what the art itself appeals to you,

but what your examples of the art are.

This course asks that everyone compile their own anthology.

This is my personal anthology.

This anthology making is an exercise I require of all students,

in every poetry course I've ever taught.

I think that assignment is probably the most useful thing I feel I do,

as a teacher.

I enjoy it, as a teacher-- because, instead of saying, hey, like poetry.

It'll be good.

I'm saying to the students, what do you have?

What do you stand by?

STUDENT 6: I've always said to friends, like, oh, poetry-- it's over my head.

I'm always saying that.

PROFESSOR ROBERT PINSKY: Well, you're an engineer.

STUDENT 6: I'm an engineer.

PROFESSOR ROBERT PINSKY: And let me tell you

that I sometimes refer to poetry as metrical engineering.

The ambition of this course is to be welcoming to everyone.

To people who have very different professions from mine.

People of a range of interests.

People interested in poetry because they have been intimidated by it.

Or the opposite-- people who love poetry, maybe write it.

Our goal is to make it intellectually rigorous, and socially welcoming,

and friendly.

I'm Robert Pinsky.

And this is-- The Art of Poetry.