In an influential 1988 essay, poet Gregory Orr identifies story, structure, music, and imagination as the four temperaments that define poets and their poetry. What is your poetic temperament? In this class, we will explore Orr’s model, delving into his ideas about the interaction of finite temperaments (story, structure) and infinite temperaments (music, imagination). Reading poems by Julia Alvarez, Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lorde, Frank O’Hara, Dorothy Parker, James Wright, and others, we will observe how the four temperaments allow poets, in the words of Orr, “to forge language into the convincing unities we call poems.” This class is suitable for writers and readers alike. Poets will gain new insight into their own poetic temperament and how they can refine it to achieve their creative objectives. Readers will deepen their engagement with poetry by acquiring a new interpretive framework. A segment devoted to generative writing will allow writers and non-writers alike to explore their poetic temperament.

​Michael Broder is the author of “Drug and Disease Free” (Indolent Books, 2016) and “This Life Now” (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2014), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. His work has been published in Columbia Poetry Review, The American Poetry Review, The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and numerous others. He holds a BA from Columbia University, an MFA from New York University, and a PhD in classics from The Graduate Center, CUNY.

​Registration is required via the Nebraska Poetry Society website. Free with annual membership; nominal fee for non-members. Students, minors and others for whom the registration fee is prohibitive may request a free membership.