MFA in Creative Writing-Poetry

Distinctive Features
Core Poetry Faculty
Recent Visiting Faculty
Reading Series
Literary Magazine Editing
Graduate Student Instructors
Fellowships and Financial Assistance
Recent Student Publications
What Students Say

See also:
Sample course descriptions
Columbia College Graduate School
MFA Poetry Blog

"Columbia offered the opportunity to cast my net wide, try a variety of poetic styles, and experiment until I found out what worked for me. This program celebrates variety, but insists on craft, language, and intelligence."

— Kristen Orser, MFA ’08

     Columbia College Chicago’s MFA Program in Creative Writing–Poetry, one of the only single-genre programs in the country, will prepare you to write and publish poetry at a high professional level. You’ll gain a sophisticated understanding of poetry as a contemporary and historical practice as you bolster your imaginative and critical abilities. Wide and Shallow, Narrow and Deep: An Experiment in Influence. Collage & Collaboration. Foundations and Metamorphoses: Poetic Re-Makings of Epic, Visionary, and Classical Texts. Poetry & Film. Taboo, Unrepresentable, and Underrepresented Topics. Sexton & Plath. These are just some of Literature Classes and Craft Seminars that, along with Graduate Poetry Workshops, will prepare you as an artist, scholar, and creative professional. You’ll also have the chance to take electives in writing pedagogy and literary magazine editing and production. When you complete the program, you’ll have a book-length poetry manuscript in hand, and will be prepared to participate in the worlds of poetry, publishing, and the arts. A Thesis Development Seminar, usually taken in your penultimate semester, will assist you in compiling your manuscript. In your final semester, you’ll polish your thesis manuscript as you work one-on-one with one of our four nationally-renowned, award-winning Core Faculty members or with our Elma Stuckey Liberal Arts and Sciences Emerging Poet-in-Residence.

Distinctive Features

• Two-year, poetry-only MFA program
• Enough evening classes to be a full-time student while working 9-to-5
• Vibrant, diverse local poetry scene in the birthplace of the poetry slam
• Urban campus in booming downtown Chicago neighborhood
• Students work for the Poetry Foundation, Chicago Poetry Center, and other local arts organizations

top

Core Poetry Faculty

Columbia College’s Core Poetry Faculty members are Lisa Fishman, Arielle Greenberg, Tony Trigilio, and David Trinidad. Lisa’s third collection, The Happiness Experiment, was published by Ahsahta Press in 2007. Two of her chapbooks, KabbaLoom (Wyrd Press, Boulder) and “The Holy Spirit does not deal in synonimes,” notes by Elizabeth Barrett Browning transcribed from the margins of her Greek and Hebrew Bibles (Parcel Chapbooks, Denver) were also published this year. Arielle is the author of the poetry collections My Kafka Century (Action Books, 2005) and Given (Verse Press, 2002), and the co-editor of a textbook on youth subcultures and of an anthology on women poets and mentorship. Tony is the Director of Creative Writing–Poetry, and is the author of the collection of poems The Lama’s English Lessons (Three Candles, 2006) as well as books of criticism, including the recently published Allen Ginsberg’s Buddhist Poetics (Southern Illinois University Press, 2007). David’s latest book, The Late Show, is out from Turtle Point Press this year, and was recently reviewed in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. His previous book, Plasticville, was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize of the Academy of American Poets.

top

 

Recent Visiting Faculty

Richard Meier, Danielle Pafunda, Joan Larkin, Ed Roberson, Karen Volkman, Suzanne Buffam, Nick Carbó, and Stephanie Strickland have all taught at Columbia as Visiting Poets.  In 2008-09 and thereafter, the English Department will welcome the Elma Stuckey Liberal Arts and Sciences Emerging Poet-in-Residence for a full academic year.

top

Reading Series

We sponsor an active monthly reading series featuring nationally-recognized poets such as Anselm Berrigan, Denise Duhamel, Elaine Equi, C.S. Giscombe, Kate Greenstreet, Matthea Harvey, Terrance Hayes, Dorianne Laux, Joyelle McSweeney, Harryette Mullen, Maggie Nelson, Alice Notley, Naomi Shihab Nye, Michael Palmer, D.A. Powell, and Jean Valentine.

top