Billy Collins Teaches Poetry in a New Online Course

In its lat­est release, Mas­ter­class has launched a new course, “Bil­ly Collins Teach­es Read­ing and Writ­ing Poet­ry,” which they describe in the trail­er above and the text below. You can sign up here. The cost is $90. Or pay $180 and get an annu­al pass to their entire cat­a­logue of cours­es cov­er­ing a wide range of sub­jects–every­thing from film­mak­ing (Wern­er Her­zog, David Lynch, Mar­tin Scors­ese), to act­ing (Helen Mir­ren) and cre­ative writ­ing (Mar­garet Atwood), to tak­ing pho­tographs (Annie Lei­bovitz) and writ­ing plays (David Mamet). Each course is taught by an emi­nent fig­ure in their field.

Known for his wit, humor, and pro­found insight, Bil­ly is one of the best-sell­ing and most beloved con­tem­po­rary poets in the Unit­ed States. He reg­u­lar­ly sells out poet­ry read­ings, fre­quent­ly charms lis­ten­ers on NPR’s A Prairie Home Com­pan­ion, and his work has appeared in antholo­gies, text­books, and peri­od­i­cals around the world.

Called “America’s Favorite Poet” by the Wall Street Jour­nal, Bil­ly served two terms as U.S. Poet Lau­re­ate and is also a for­mer New York State Poet Lau­re­ate. He’s been hon­ored with the Mark Twain Prize for Humor in Poet­ry and a num­ber of pres­ti­gious fel­low­ships. He’s taught at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, Sarah Lawrence, and Lehman Col­lege, and he’s also a dis­tin­guished pro­fes­sor at the City Uni­ver­si­ty of New York. Now he’s teach­ing his first-ever Mas­ter­Class.

In his Mas­ter­Class on Read­ing and Writ­ing Poet­ry, Bil­ly teach­es you the build­ing blocks of poems and their unique pow­er to con­nect read­er and writer. From sub­ject and form to rhyme and meter, learn to appre­ci­ate the plea­sures of a well-turned poem. Dis­cov­er Billy’s phi­los­o­phy on the craft of poet­ry and learn how he cre­ates a poet’s per­sona, incor­po­rates humor, and lets imag­i­na­tion lead the way. By break­ing down his own approach to com­pos­ing poet­ry and enjoy­ing the work of oth­ers, Bil­ly invites stu­dents to explore the gifts poet­ry has to offer.

In this online poet­ry class, you’ll learn about:
• Using humor as a seri­ous strat­e­gy
• The fun­da­men­tal ele­ments of poet­ry
• Billy’s writ­ing process
• Turn­ing a poem
• Explor­ing sub­jects
• Rhyme and meter
• Sound plea­sures
• Find­ing your voice
• Using form to engage read­ers
• The visu­al dis­tinc­tions of poet­ry

FYI: If you sign up for a Mas­ter­Class course by click­ing on the affil­i­ate links in this post, Open Cul­ture will receive a small fee that helps sup­port our oper­a­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Ani­ma­tion of Bil­ly Collins’ Poet­ry: Every­day Moments in Motion

Stream Bil­ly Collins’ Album, The Best Cig­a­rette, Free Online

Bill Mur­ray Reads the Poet­ry of Lawrence Fer­linghet­ti, Wal­lace Stevens, Emi­ly Dick­in­son, Bil­ly Collins, Lorine Niedeck­er, Lucille Clifton & More