This course is intended as an introduction to the contemporary poetry scene in the British Isles. After an introductory lecture we will look at the work of individual poets, using The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry, edited by Blake Morrison and Andrew Motion, as our coursebook. The poets will be dealt with in the following order: Derek Mahon, Douglas Dunn, Tony Harrison, Paul Muldoon, Andrew Motion, Craig Raine, Ciaran Carson, three women poets (Anne Stevenson, Selima Hill and Medbh McGuckian -- we will not necessarily look at all three) and Simon Armitage. A coursework essay is required by Monday 30th October. It should take the form of a comparison of any two poets to be considered on the course. Alternative suggestions for poets to be written about can be made to me for my agreement.

To help you in your work an Infromation Services team led by Chris Grogan from the library has collaborated to offer you a special service - your own web page with hyperlinks to a range of interesting sites. The idea is to make more poems more readily accessible to you and to involve you actively in the search for knowledge and the enjoyment of poetry. Most of these sites present the texts of living poets. Some of them give you access to critical material and discussion groups. In addition we will have our own on-line exchange and discusssion page, giving you the chance to comment on classes and swap ideas and information. I hope you will find this fun, as well as useful. Part of the first-week seminar will be given over to explaining how to use this exciting electronic set-up, in which we are leading the way in Royal Holloway. Set the style with EN3307!

Martin Dodsworth