ENGL 3560

I absolutely loved this course and it changed my entire academic plan because I loved it so much. Professor Hart is brilliant, funny, and really knows his stuff. I rediscovered my love for poetry because of this class, and I will recommend to everyone to take Professor Hart's poetry class!! We interacted with the poems on a deep level, and I truly believe I learned a lot – about poetics/writing/etc.

This class is very low-stress and fairly easy. You have to read a few poems a week, but they're often short and in all honesty I usually just read them during class, so I essentially did nothing the entire semester besides the papers. Anyways, if you love poetry, you will love this class. Hart is very receptive to diverse interpretations and spends an entire class period on a single poem. Personally, I am not a poetry person, and I also like a fast-paced environment, so this was definitely not an ideal course for me, but it was enjoyable enough to stick with it. Participation is 10% and the other 90% is based off of two essays, each worth 45%. If you do better on the second essay, he grades up and improves your course grade, and if you participate a lot and clearly engage with the material, he will also round your grade. Even without his kindness, it is still not too difficult to get an A. None of the papers require research. All you need to do is write 11-13 double spaced pages interpreting a single poem. Seems like a lot but it is actually quite easy to go into that much detail, and I never found the essays that stressful. Just start them a bit early and chip away. Overall, decent course, and you can find every single poem online, so unless you want to purchase the books, you can also get away with spending $0.