Charles Baxter charged writers with chronicling “things about to disappear.” Whether you grew up with Cabbage Patch Kids or Pokemon, pay phones or flip phones, popular culture defines generations and provides touchstones for key moments in our lives. In this generative workshop, we will read a variety of poems featuring pop culture icons from the Kool-Aid Man to The Hulk to Colonel Sanders from poets such as Marcus Jackson, Barbara Hamby, Jon Tribble, Katie Manning, and Aimee Nezhukumatathil. We will use these poems as jumping-off points for our own new work. Students will leave the class with at least three drafts that they can continue to refine on their own. Materials distributed for the course will include a list of suggested places to submit finished pop culture poems.
