Wednesdays 10-12 Noon
January 14 through March 3, 2004
Location TBD
Two Pultzer Prize winning books, two poets, two women whose observation of the natural world leads them into unusual places. We will read two books: American Primitive by Mary Oliver (1983) and The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck (1992). One hundred fifty pages of poetry will take us deep into the heart of wild things and back; be prepared for intense discussion of bulbs, bears, death, and joy. The quality of the class will be strongly influenced by the preparation of each member. We will try to uncover what makes this work poetry, we will learn some of the technical terms for what poets do, we will sink our teeth into the words. As Mary Oliver says in the poem, “The Plum Trees”:
...Listen,
the only way
to tempt happiness into your mind is by taking it
into the body first, like small
wild plums.
Class is limited to 16 members.
Patricia Norton is a musician, poet, mother and Vermont Humanities Council scholar. A stint as a professional mime made it clear how much sound matters to her. She has lived in the Upper Valley since 1996, and this is her sixth course for ILEAD.
