WL

For thousands of years, love poetry has been written by men for women. For hundreds of years, that’s what students learn at school and university, and what we read on cards or in poetry collections. That story is a lie.

Women have always loved. Women have always longed. And they have also always expressed those feelings in poetry. Only that we don’t get to hear about it. Many women did not put their name to their works. Often, a female name would have consigned the text to oblivion. Today, still, lyrics written by women remain under-studied at best and belittled at worst.

In this course, we will examine one or two poems per session, poems about love (and everything around it) written by women. We will explore the lyrics, and use them as springboards for writing exercises inspired by the texts. You will learn about the lives and cultures of a wide-range of writing women, including queer poets and non-white writers across hundreds of years. You will acquire analytical close-reading skills and tap into your own creativity through poetry. We interpret poems together, so please be aware that you may be asked what you think. There will be opportunities to share your writing, but it’s not a must.