Concentrations

Poetry Concentration

As a poetry concentration student, you will practice and study traditional and experimental verse in order to gain a first-hand sense of the varieties of poetic form and their complex relation to sense and meaning. MFA Poetry workshops feature intensive engagement with poetic composition.

Writing exercises may include experiments with both Western and non-Western forms, e.g. the ballad, sonnet, ode, haiku, haibun, prose poem, the many possibilities of free verse, and work in mixed genres.

Faculty at The Jack Kerouac School are accomplished poets and each brings a distinct perspective to the curriculum. Although our teaching styles may vary, we all agree on an approach to poetry rooted in the discoveries of experimental writers of the twentieth century, continuing into and through the postmodern period.

Our curriculum also reflects a historical and international perspective gained by study of ancient, early European, Asian, African, and Latin American verse as well as North American poetic traditions. Literature courses study such traditions and texts from the point of view of a practicing writer.

Prose Concentration

At Naropa the Prose Concentration offers a dedicated community of award-winning, internationally acknowledged writers teaching a unique curriculum in small, supportive classes.

The students who come here are a major component of that community and find themselves in company with other developing writers who are equally serious about sharpening their craft.

A broad view of prose technique, informed peer-group participation, and crossover experimentation are taught in provocative course offerings by writers from diverse backgrounds using a variety of teaching styles. Students can immerse themselves in the development of their writing with workshops that include the short story, monologue, dialogue, performance text, hybrid forms, and the novel.

Workshops encourage peer critique and develop editing skills and an informed vocabulary for group discussion. In addition to the ongoing curriculum there are weekend practica given by guest writers, and the Summer Writing Program, a four week intensive, which offers workshops each week, and is part of the degree requirement.

Translation Concentration

Translation students examine both theoretical and technical aspects of literary translation along with relevant issues in literary history, linguistics, and cross-cultural studies in order to develop a working sense of the translator's craft.

MFA translation workshops may include various exercises in translation, explication, imitation, and mistranslation. Generally in each course a student will focus on a sustained work of translation from a particular author, language, or historical period.