The Classroom and the Crowd

Al Filreis’s revolutionary pedagogy overturns complacent, monodirectional closures of official lecture and lyric culture. Learner-centered teaching and reader-centered poems open democratic vistas for intimate, individualized, aesthetically charged, resounding interactive education—on a mass scale. Filreis, yes! – Charles Bernstein, author of The Kinds of Poetry I Want: Essays and ComediesOpen to interpretation — open to learners online — open to a campus and neighbors in West Philadelphia — poetry-based communities unfold in this book in intertwined, compelling stories. The Classroom and the Crowd shows how to escape from oubliettes established by both disruptors and traditional educators. – Nick Montfort, author of All the Way for the WinIn The Classroom and the Crowd, Al Filreis examines the groundbreaking experience we call ModPo from every angle. With his characteristic curiosity, he turns this puzzle over and over, eschewing hyperbole, disinclined to make grandiose claims. So, as a ModPo participant myself, I will make one: this course changed my life. Now, I have much more insight into all the carefully considered components that made this possible. – Laura Lippman, New York Times-bestselling author

Al Filreis is Kelly Family Professor of English, founding faculty director of the Kelly Writers House, director of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, codirector of PennSound, and publisher of Jacket2 magazine, all at the University of Pennsylvania. His recent books include 1960: When Art and Literature Confronted the Memory of World War II and Remade the Modern (Columbia, 2021), and he is the host of the podcast PoemTalk.