First Blog Entry: To be completed before class, Thursday, January 21

Length: at least 450 words

• In the upper right-hand corner, you’ll see two options: “Create Blog” and “Sign In.” Choose “Sign In.” This will take you to your Blogger dashboard; hit the “New Post” button under our blog’s heading on your dashboard.

If it doesn’t want to let you log in, email me and remind me to add you as a contributor!

• Make your first blog entry. In that entry, please spend at least 450 words answering the following questions:

• What are you studying, and why do you like it?
• Where are you from, and what’s it like there?
• Aside from writing, what are your interests and hobbies?
• Have you had good or bad experiences getting feedback on your work? What were they?
• Who are your influences? Name some poets, living or dead, whose work you admire (and try to articulate what you admire about them). A poet you detest can also be an influence--if you can articulate how you want to write differently from him.
• What’s good about good poetry? What poetic pitfalls do you try to avoid?
• What do you hope to learn in this class? (Don’t be lame and say, “I want to learn to write better poems.” Be more specific than that.)