Aphorisms abound when it comes to attempting to define poetry and its effects. Both poets and non-poets have weighed in on the subject. And their claims run from the grandiose (“poetry redeems from decay the visitations of divinity in man”) to the chastened (“poetry makes nothing happen”). All of these seem incomplete, and yet all are valid attempts to “formulate in a phrase,” a condition of knowing and of being that is always just beyond our grasp.
Fully aware of these difficulties, this site claims no special insight, make no presumption of offering a final word. It represents the work of students at the University of Delaware as part of their study of poetry. It is their effort to take what they’ve learned beyond the confines of the classroom and to pin down their fleeting observations, to make them tangible and visible to a larger audience. The Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney describes poetry as “more a threshold than a path, one constantly approached and constantly departed from, at which reader and writer undergo in their different ways the experience of being at the same time summoned and released.” It our hope that this site too might function as a threshold of sorts for other students of poetry.
For each of the poets on this site, readers will find a short critical biography, representative poems with brief analyses, and videos that seek to present a different view of the poets and their work.
Be sure to check back from time to time as new material is added.
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