This Fall 2019 semester, Professor Tsitsi Jaji taught Introduction to Poetry. This class came at an exciting time for her as she published her own poetry book Mother Tongues in November. Professor Jaji has never taught this class before, but quickly confirmed that she is “having great fun teaching this class.” Jaji says, “It’s an amazing opportunity to get to know students and how they see the world in ways they care about, ways they’re invested in.”
When Professor Jaji first realized that her class was primarily seniors with few English majors, she was worried that they just wanted an easy ALP or W credit. However, the students soon disproved her concern: “It’s been so great because everyone in the class does take it seriously. It’s a great opportunity for all of us to pay attention to our creative impulses.” From computer science majors to creative writing minors, Professor Jaji has enjoyed the diversity of knowledge that these students have brought into the class.
Introduction to Poetry is structured so that students have weekly readings, but the majority of discussion time focuses on their own writing. Professor Jaji gives prompts, but her student Amarachi finds that they’re open-ended enough to give her space to explore. Professor Jaji believes how students respond to these prompts comes “from them and oftentimes from a very strongly felt part of their personhood.” During the beginning of the semester, the class focused on traditions in poetry and related these traditions to contemporary poetry. Professor Jaji felt free to revise the class plan in response to class discussions and students’ previous knowledge. Amarachi noted this openness as an aspect she did not expect but has greatly appreciated.
Professor Jaji’s poetry class works like this: every class, students workshop poems that Jaji selects beforehand without forewarning the writers. She directs attention to what the poem “is doing in its own terms” rather than its implications. By focusing on the language first, the students enhance their close reading skillset.
Professor Jaji has also experimented with a variety of activities during her classes including a trip to the archives which led to writing poems on women’s history. During one class, Jaji read a German poem out loud while her students transcribed what they heard. They then wrote their own poems based on their transcriptions. The German poem about music inspired writing on building, homes, and even a Hebrew poem.
Amarachi entered the class with her “own small world of what [she] thought poetry was.” From Introduction to Poetry, the Computer Science major has learned about form, sonnet, meter, rhyme, sound vs. meaning, assonance, how words make you feel, and how words relate to other things. Amarachi’s main takeaway has been that “a poem does something. It makes a reader feel something.” Many students, including herself, took the class because they wanted to experiment with something new. Amarachi recommends that anyone who takes a poetry class read many poems before they begin writing. It helps Amarachi, she says, to expand her ideas on form and find structures she wants to try herself.
In the future, Professor Jaji hopes to continue using “Duke’s amazing resources—the art museum, being able to invite poets, all of that.” She does wish to make one change: some mandatory time at office hours. During her office hours, Professor Jaji enjoys “being able to get into more detail, to get more of a sense of what the poet is interested in trying, and offer them other ways in.” One-on-one exploration, Jaji says, “so often entails learning much more about [a student’s] life as a full human being.” She believes that office hours are a chance for any student to truly show up.
Creative writing classes provide a fun opportunity to knock-out that W requirement, experiment within the English major, and expand students’ interests. The classes also can add some variety to a STEM major’s schedule. At any point in one’s Duke career, a creative writing class can increase self-expression. Professor Jaji concluded her interview with what she believes students can take away from a poetry class: “They are having the experience of caring about connecting through language in one particular way in a motivational setting: the Duke graded classroom. I hope they can take from that the bravery to be passionate about something that comes from their core.”
English Department
