ModPo thoughts of spring

Below is the text of a message I have sent to all ModPo people through the ModPo site. If you don’t currently have access to the site, please simply enroll or re-enroll here: https://www.coursera.org/learn/modpo

Greetings from Philadelphia, and from the quaint 1851 cottage called “the Kelly Writers House”! Spring has finally sprung here in our corner of the northern hemisphere. There’s a favorite dogwood tree in the Writers House garden, and it’s very pink this bright day.

Spring leads to thoughts of summer, and summer to early autumn. And that, of course, is the time each year (since 2012) when ModPo convenes again for a ten-week all-together movement through the 10 weeks of our course. ModPo is what used to be called a “survey” course, and each week of the ten coincides with an element or phase or movement or period or mode of the history of U.S. poetry from the rise of modernism through to the contemporary scene, with an emphasis on the experimental (or “avant garde”) side of those developments.

We start again, going from week 1 through week 10, on Saturday, September 8, 2018.

If you look at the headnotes to each week of the main syllabus, you will see that the dates have all been updated for 2018. You’ll also see that new dates and times for our weekly live interactive webcasts are also listed in the weekly headnotes.

You can also see info about the weekly webcast sessions by click on “Resources” in the left-side menu, and then click “live webcast sessions.” Or go directly to our webcasts page HERE.

And below I’ve copied the fall 2018 webcast schedule. Many of you are fans of this live, interactive, improvisational conversation we host from the Arts Cafe of the Writers House at various times each Wednesday. So please add these dates and times to your calendars now!

I will continue to send occasional announcements and updates. Meantime, if you have ANY questions, don’t hesitate please to contact us directly at modpo@writing.upenn.edu.

Enjoying (as WCW put it) spring & all,

—Al Filreis

ModPo 2018 weekly live webcast schedule

1. Wednesday, September 12, 2018, 3 PM (Philadelphia time) (webcast discussion forum)
2. Thursday, September 20, 2018, noon (Philadelphia time) (webcast discussion forum)
3. Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 10 AM (Philadelphia time) (webcast discussion forum)
4. Thursday, October 4, 2018, time & location TBD (webcast discussion forum) [ModPo will be “on the road” this week]
5. Wednesday, October 10, 2018, 5 PM (Philadelphia time) (webcast discussion forum)
6. Wednesday, October 17, 2018, noon (Philadelphia time) [features Rae Armantrout & Angela Carr] (webcast discussion forum)
7. Wednesday, October 24, 2018, 8 PM (Philadelphia time) (webcast discussion forum)
8. Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 3 PM (Philadelphia time) (webcast discussion forum)
9. Wednesday, November 7, 2018, 5 PM (Philadelphia time) [features Josh Schuster] (webcast discussion forum)
10. Wednesday, November 14, 2018, 8 PM (Philadelphia time) (webcast discussion forum)
11. Monday, November 19, 2018, 10:30 AM FINAL WORDS (Philadelphia time) (webcast discussion forum)

Want to re-watch last year’s live webcasts? Check out our YouTube channel here!