“That now are wild, and do not once remember”–writing poetry against discouragement; for many this is a difficult time: scientists and humanities scholars agree much unhappiness still lingers after the Covid crisis, half the country did not vote for the current administration and some who did, did not vote for what the administration seems currently to be doing, and the hegemonic economic structures on the horizon seem to promise increased isolation from, if not hostility from, countries near us we thought of as friends. Czeslaw Milosz, thinking of his Poland after, the Nazis being defeated, the Red Army marched in, realized that, for all the emotions he felt, discouragement was the most dangerous. We will read poems by Milosz, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Joseph Lease, Ilya Kaminsky, Robert Pinsky, Rosanna Warren, Louise Gluck, Francois Villon and Horace. The course, which takes its title from a line by Wyatt, will focus on poetry not of denial, nor of mere rebellion or reaction; but counter-love, original response, creation manifest as what Nietzsche calls “healthy forgetfulness.”

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