This course provides an interdisciplinary exploration of African diaspora poetics, with a special emphasis on environmental poetry. Following Ed Roberson’s contention that “the world does not run the earth, but the earth does run the world” we will linger with the poetry of those who view literary studies not only or primarily as an institutional enterprise, but as planetary thinking, as a commitment to care for the earth. We will draw on a range of texts to wrestle with the key concerns of black writers from the 19th century through the present. As the course title promises, we will indeed read and write poems; but we will also collectively listen to music, study film, and take field trips to local performance venues and community archives. We will establish a workshop space that is also a space of experimentation: one where we craft new works, new forms, new approaches, as an ensemble.