First, forget everything you have learned, that poetry is difficult, / that it cannot be appreciated by the likes of you, ...
Treat a poem like dirt, humus rich and heavy from the garden. Later on, it will become the fat tomatoes and golden squash piled high upon your kitchen table…
Read just one poem a day.
Someday a book of poems may open in your hands like a daffodil offering its cup / to the sun.
When you can name five poets / without including Bob Dylan, when you exceed your quota / and don’t even notice, close this manual.
Congratulations. / You can now read poetry.

– How to Read a Poem: Beginner’s Manual by Pamela Spiro Wagner

In this class, we will share our ways of reading and enjoying poetry. We may delve into particular poets as selected by class participants, and we will delve more deeply into that poets’ techniques, such as paradox, irony, metaphor, imagery, symbolism, rhyme, allusion, etc. Our goal: To fall in love with poetry.

Format: Discussion. Each meeting, two or three class members will lead discussions about poems they have selected from the anthology; they may also provide background on the poem and/or poet. The coordinators will provide question sets and guides on various ways to read poems and on various poetic techniques. This is a Zoom video conferencing class.

Expenses/Resources: Neil Astley, ed. Being Alive, the sequel to Staying Alive, from $7 to $18 at Amazon. Suggested text: M. Zapruder, Why Poetry, $10 at Amazon.