Poetry/Psychedelic Poetry

It is the authors' belief that a psychedelic experience can be had without the use of mind-altering substances. This course does not in any way advocate the use of such substances by anyone.

Psychedelic poetry is any combination of poetry with the psychedelic experience. Psychedelic poetry can be broken down into three forms:

• Author-subject: Poetry written during a psychedelic experience, or about a psychedelic experience after the fact.
• Reader-subject: Poetry intended to be read during a psychedelic experience.
• Self-subject: Poetry wherein the poem itself is a psychedelic experience.

This kind of poetry, like all poetry, cannot be diagnosed based on the words of the author, due to the intentional fallacy. In order to determine whether poetry is psychedelic, it becomes necessary to conduct psychedelic criticism.

Topics

1. Craft of the psychedelic poem
2. Foundations for psychedelic criticism
3. Writing psychedelic criticism

Projects

1. Write a psychedelic poem. Because psychedelic poetry is in many ways a new field, it is very difficult to find public-domain psychedelic poems. Therefore your psychedelic poetry written here may be used as an example in this course.
2. Write psychedelic criticism. Critique any poem for its psychedelic aspects.

External links

• Free psychedelic poetry:
  • Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary
  • Discontinued blog by an independent press
• Articles:
  • A Quest for Pure Sanity – The Psychedelic Poetry of Tommy Hall (13th Floor Elevators)
  • Literary Review: ‘Psychedelic Prayers’ by Timothy Leary