Phillips Exeter Academy

Documentary Poetics

ENG538

Documentary Poetics

Documentary poetry is the poetry of witness, of weaving together public and personal history to give voice to the silenced, a reckoning to the dead and disappeared, and to honor and celebrate human joy and struggle. It is a poetry that captures historical moments through an assemblage of different media, ranging from primary resources like newspapers, witness testimonies, treaties, court transcripts and 19 Phillips Exeter Academy | Courses of Instruction | 2022-23 government documents to more contemporary mediums such as video and hyperlinks. Students will study and discuss such texts as Muriel Rukeyser’s The Book of the Dead, Tyehimba Jess’ Olio, Claudia Rankine’s Citizen, Paisley Rekdal’s West and Jill McDonough’s Reaper. Students will ponder the ethical questions of who gets to document and who is documented as well as the formal restraints and freedoms of such works as they develop and produce their own documentary poetry project.