Jennifer Clarvoe came to Kenyon in 1990. She has also taught at Harvard Summer School, Wellesley, Boston University and in the MFA Program at the University of California at Irvine. At Kenyon, she developed the English department's emphasis in creative writing.
Clarvoe teaches poetry workshops and specializes in modern and contemporary American poetry. In her course Prosody and Poetics, students learn to appreciate and analyze the formal strategies of poets spanning the range of the tradition in English through writing exercises of their own. In her course Poetry and the Visual Arts, students study the ekphrastic tradition ranging from Homer's description of the shield of Achilles, to Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn," to John Ashbery's "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror."
Her first book of poems, "Invisible Tender," won the Poets Out Loud Prize and the prestigious Kate Tufts Discovery Award for "a first or early work of genuine promise." Her second book of poems, "Counter-Amores," was published…
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Jennifer Clarvoe came to Kenyon in 1990. She has also taught at Harvard Summer School, Wellesley, Boston University and in the MFA Program at the University of California at Irvine. At Kenyon, she developed the English department's emphasis in creative writing.
Clarvoe teaches poetry workshops and specializes in modern and contemporary American poetry. In her course Prosody and Poetics, students learn to appreciate and analyze the formal strategies of poets spanning the range of the tradition in English through writing exercises of their own. In her course Poetry and the Visual Arts, students study the ekphrastic tradition ranging from Homer's description of the shield of Achilles, to Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn," to John Ashbery's "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror."
Her first book of poems, "Invisible Tender," won the Poets Out Loud Prize and the prestigious Kate Tufts Discovery Award for "a first or early work of genuine promise." Her second book of poems, "Counter-Amores," was published by the University of Chicago Press.
In 2002-2003, Clarvoe was awarded the Rome Prize in Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which allowed her to spend the year writing at the American Academy in Rome. In the fall of 2010, as director of the Kenyon in Rome Program, she returned to Rome with twenty Kenyon students for a semester of study and travel.
Education
1993 — Doctor of Philosophy from Univ. of California Berkeley
1983 — Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University
Courses Recently Taught
ENGL 104
Introduction to Literature and Language
ENGL 104
Each section of these first-year seminars approaches the study of literature through the exploration of a single theme in texts drawn from a variety of literary genres (such as tragedy, comedy, lyric poetry, epic, novel, short story, film and autobiography) and historical periods. Classes are small, offering intensive discussion and close attention to each student's writing. Students in each section are asked to work intensively on composition as part of a rigorous introduction to reading, thinking, speaking and writing about literary texts. During the semester, instructors will assign frequent essays and may also require oral presentations, quizzes, examinations and research projects. This course is not open to juniors and seniors without permission of department chair. Offered every year.
ENGL 201
Introduction to Poetry Writing
ENGL 201
This course begins with two premises: (1) that students of the craft of poetry should be challenged to write in as many different ways as possible and (2) that students are individual writers with different needs and goals. In this course, we will study a variety of types of poetry. Regular writing exercises will encourage students to widen their scope and develop their craft. The course will emphasize discovering the "true" subject of each poem, acquiring the skills needed to render that subject, understanding the relationship between form and content, and, finally, interrogating the role and function of poetry in a culture. In addition to weekly reading and writing assignments, students will submit a process-based portfolio demonstrating an understanding of the revision process and a final chapbook of eight to 12 pages of poetry. Admission to this course is open, though students may not take this course in the first semester of their first year. Seats are reserved for students in each class year. Offered every year.
ENGL 371
Whitman and Dickinson
ENGL 371
"I celebrate myself and sing myself, / And what I shall assume you shall assume," asserts Walt Whitman. Emily Dickinson queries, "I'm Nobody -- who are you?" This course will focus in depth on the poetic works of these two 19th-century American poets, paying attention to the development of their distinctive poetry and their careers, their publication history and reception, the relationship between their work and lives, and their influence on subsequent generations of writers. We will pay particular attention to their formal innovations and poetic principles. Students will write weekly response papers, including projects in poetic imitation, and two longer (nine-to-12 page) essays. This counts toward the 1700-1900 requirement for the major. Prerequisite: junior standing or ENGL 210-291 or permission of instructor.
ENGL 391
ST:Brooks, Plath, Bishop &Rich
ENGL 391
ENGL 405
Senior Seminar in Creative Writing
ENGL 405
This seminar is required for English majors pursuing an emphasis in creative writing. The course will involve critical work on a topic chosen by the instructor (such as "Reliable and Unreliable: Investigating Narrative Voice," "Beginnings and Endings," "The Little Magazine in America" and "Documentary Poetics") to provide context and structure for students' creative work. Students should check online listings for the specific focus of each section. Although not primarily a workshop, this seminar will require students to work on a substantial creative project (fiction, nonfiction or poetry). Senior English majors pursuing an emphasis in literature are required to take ENGL 410 instead. Students pursuing honors will take ENGL 497 rather than the Senior Seminar. Prerequisite: senior standing and English major. Offered every year.
INDS 498Y
Academic & Scholarly Achievements
2011
Counter-Amores, University of Chicago Press, 2011.
2000
Invisible Tender, introduction by J.D. McClatchy, Fordham University Press, 2000.
2012
"Moving Images" (a review of The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems, by Robert Hass), in The Cincinnati Review, 8.2 (Winter 2012). Also featured as the Poetry Daily Prose 2/7/2012 - 2/20/2012.
2011
"T. S. Eliot and the Short Long Poem," in A Companion to Poetic Genre, ed. Erik Martiny, (Wiley-Blackwell, Winter 2011). Online at Online Library.
2010
"Half-Lives and Vanishing Points: Carpaccio's 'Hunting on the Lagoon,'" Southwest Review. (April 2010) (Winner of the McGinnis Ritchie Award for Nonfiction).
2009
2008
"What She Thought," Southwest Review (93.2, Spring 2008); Reprinted online by Verse Daily.