Learner Reviews & Feedback for Sharpened Visions: A Poetry Workshop by California Institute of the Arts

Absolutely loved the course! I don't have any formal education in literature or poetry, and joined the course hoping to learn some basics of the art. I received much more than I'd expected. Professor Doug is an exceptional teacher, and I hope to use these new learnings in the poetry I write henceforth.

A very structured and comprehensive course covering the fundamentals of poetry. I would highly recommend this MOOC to anyone serious about writing poetry. A well designed syllabus taught by the Prof Douglas K in his inimitable style. The mentors are extremely helpful and the peer group is engaging.

I am presently taking this course for fun, I love writing, specially creating poetry. I find the instructor very engaging, interesting, and motivating. He also seems to know his subject very well. He makes the time I spend in class worthwhile. He is just plain fun! Love this class.

Julia

Boulder, CO

Instructor was great - knowledgeable, inspiring, made the work seem doable. I really appreciated his style of teaching. Of the three courses I was signed up for, this was the one I completed. Assignments were manageable., as was the format of the course. Thank you for offering this workshop!

This is the second time I've done this workshop. I found new things to explore this second time around and will probably do it again in the future. The variety of prompts and fun instruction make it a go-to for poetry inspiration. It's a great experience that can be enjoyed again and again.

Doug was terrific and presented every week's information with clarity and humor. This was a fabulous course for me, as I try to build a poetry practice as it lays a solid foundation of ideas and techniques. I will likely revisit this course in the future to keep all of these concepts fresh.

This workshop is anything but boring. I had so much fun going through the videos, learning the basics, and workshopping my poems. I couldn't have asked for a greater start to this journey! Special credit to the instructor for infusing all his lectures with genuine enthusiasm and vigour!

I really enjoyed this course. The instructor and accompanying videos and assignments were clever and innovative. All kept my interest and enthusiasm for understanding and learning. It was especially motivating and a distraction during the "covid" period. I recommend this course to all!

Excellent overview with bite-size explanations that really puts into context some of that fiddly terminology. The lectures are accessible and makes the theory less daunting. Thanks to Douglas Kearney & crew for helping me to see where I can improve to produce better works of poetry.

Thanks a lot Mr Douglas Kearney and California Institute of Arts. I really enjoyed doing this workshop and it inspired me to write poetry. I found the peer-graded assignments to be the best part of the course. I highly recommend this workshop to people interested in poetry.

This course was excellent. The videos were instructive, the writing prompts stimulating, and the feedback from other students very helpful. I wish there was a more advanced workshop course for those of us who would like to continue the momentum generated by this introduction.

Amazing course. The instructor was great and had a really fun teaching style that kept me interested, and the mentors were very helpful. I learned a lot about poetry through this course and would recommend it to anyone wanting to challenge themselves and become better poets.

Amazing workshop!! I really enjoyed the prompts and how we had to review other people's poems, it made it more enriching and you have the opportunity to read the comments about your work in the eyes of another person. Lots of fun and different from other courses I've taken.

Thank you very much - I enjoyed learning more about poetry and being introduced to so many poets from the USA. Module 6 was especially useful - understanding the difference between revising and editing. I had the most fun with the lipogram. All the best for future courses!

What a great presenter who really brought poetry to life for his students! I found peer review difficult given I am such a novice but enjoyed the standard of submissions from others - some great poets in the making. Material and references were excellent. Thankyou.

Great intro to poetry. The analysis of the poems was great, and I really enjoyed the poems covered in the course.

The writing prompts are the hardest and most time consuming part of the course. I write for fun and the practice I got from this course was very useful.

I'm from Argentina and absolutely loved everything about this course. It gave me a variety of tools to understand and write better poetry. The prompts were great and the revision process with peers was quite enlightening and easy. I would higly recommend doing it.

Great course with an excellent, charismatic and funny instructor. The lessons were fun & interesting; the assignments were as well. I got excellent feedback from peers--respectful, thoughtful and helpful. Wish there was another segment that built on this one.

I really loved this poetry course! It was taught with a different style compared to similar courses that I have taken in the past. He teaches the it with a different flair for poetry! Because of that I not only enjoyed the course but also learned a great deal!

The teacher made this a lot of fun and I learned far more than I'd expected, plus I think I came away with a good poem of my own, with thanks to helpful peer feedback. Having finished the course, I now feel more equipped to read, appreciate and write poetry.

The course is just great! All the contents are presented in a pretty pleasant way and concepts are clearly explained shortly and exemplified. Participants are supposed to learn through practice, resulting in very challenging and encouraging experiences.

WONDERFUL! I FOUND POETRY! THANKS FOR SHARING YOUR WISDOM AND MAKING ME DEFEAT MY PREJUDICE AGAINST TRYING THE POETRY INSIDE MY SOUL. IT EMERGED AT LAT AND IT'S BEEN ONE OF THE GREATEST DISCOVERIS OF MY LIFE. THIS FIRST STEP COULD NOT HAVE BEEN BETTER.

This is the first course I managed to complete online. I was very enthusiastic about it and I absolutely enjoyed every part of it. Sometimes I felt like I was watching educational stand up comedy! It was a good introduction to poetry as a hobby for me.

An excellent course. This is a great introduction to writing poetry. Easy to follow. Lots of assignments, interesting presentation. This course gave me an opportunity to explore the basic elements of poetry in a way I have not done before. Recommend.

This is a great course. I learned so many new things about writing poetry both from the professor and the peer reviews. In the revision section I learned the difference between editing and revision. This one thing cleared up a great mystery for me.