Exploring Life in the Human Body through Poetry

This is an Archive of a Past Event

What does it mean to not only exist, but to thrive, inside one’s body, in the 21st century, with the longest lifetime expectancy in human history? By focusing on poems that engage and challenge both the physical aspects, and the mysteries of the human body, this class will empower us to deepen awareness and shed light on our innate understanding of ourselves. Studies have revealed that expressive writing and therapeutic poetry writing can show statistically significant improvements in “physical health, reductions in visits to physicians, and increased immune system function,” as well as “increase insight, self-awareness, and adaptive healthy functioning” (McArdle & Byrt 2001).

This 3 session discussion-based and creatively-generative class will be divided into 3 parts: the devotional, the diminutive, and the transformative. After reading and discussing published poems, we will address these 3 aspects of life in the human body by writing poems that are grounded in the concrete and physical world.

Instructor: Jacques Rancourt was a 2012-2014 Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford and a 2011-2012 Halls Emerging Artist Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. His poems have appeared in over fifty nationally-recognized literary journals, including the *Kenyon Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, New England Review, and Best New Poets 2014. 

*HIP offers over 50 health education classes each quarter. For a full listing of classes, please visit hip.stanford.edu.