A module in a course that surveys 300+ years of poetry in America, from the Puritans to the avant-garde poets of this new century, the course covers individual figures (Poe, Whitman, Dickinson, Frost, Williams, Hughes), major poetic movements (Firesides, Modernist, New York, Confessional, L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E) and probes uses of poetry across changing times. Who, and what, are poems for? For poets? Readers? To give vent to the soul? To paint or sculpt with words? Alter consciousness? Raise cultural tone? Students will read, write about and also recite American poems.