Welcome!

Welcome to English 491: Senior Portfolio in Creative Writing, the POETRY edition.

I'm Cynthia Hand, the instructor for the course. See the Professor page for more information about me and how you can get in contact with me.

Take a few minutes to maneuver around this website—this is the cornerstone of the class, and you should read every bit of it and continue to check it obsessively all semester. I often post little extras--articles and resources I think will be helpful to you, so please check back often to make the most out of this class.

Then take a minute to purchase the book The Poets Home Repair Manual. It will not be available at the BSU bookstore, (because this course was assigned for me to teach so late in the process) so buy it now by clicking on the book in the column on your right. I’d prefer you to purchase the paperback copy, because we’ll be flipping though it a lot during class.

So, a little basic information about the course. In this class we will:

•   Revise! This class is all about revising the poems you’ve been working on in all of your poetry writing courses up to this point. While you are free to write entirely new poems for class if you feel the need to, this course is focused on revision. Over the next fifteen weeks you'll revise and workshop 15 poems, the goal being that at the end of the course you will have a high quality portfolio of your very best work. 

•   Read. At the end of this class you'll have read two collections of poetry, a book on the craft, and a book on revision, not including the unpublished poems you’ll read for workshop. Happily, these will largely be books you’ve chosen for yourself to suit your particular needs as a writer.  (Have you always wanted to read Mary Oliver’s Rules for the Dance or Richard Hugo’s The Triggering Town? Now’s your chance.) 

Thanks for being so patient with the bumpy beginning for this class. 


I'm excited to read your work. Let's get to it, then!