Introduction

I had to introduce myself for my first Masters of English class called Seminar in Poetry. This is how I introduced myself.

Hello! My name is Matt Butcher. I am a ninth grade English teacher in Washington state.
I am taking this class because I finally found an online service that will let me complete a Masters in English. Being a teacher, I get a big (for teaching) raise upon completion and I did not want to waste my time in boredom in a Masters of Education program. I am here to pursue one of my true loves, English and literature. Teaching ninth graders can be unsatisfying sometimes because I am constantly trying to get them to write coherent paragraphs and put a period at the end of a sentence. I am here for my own gratification as well as career advancement.
I have always enjoyed most of the classical forms of poetry, like the sonnet. Admittedly, I have not had much experience with modern poetry, only taking one class in college called Modern Poetry. Actually, one of the best experiences I had in modern poetry was when I had to research the Imagism movement of the early 1900s for teaching an honors eleventh grade class. This isn't exactly modern though.
Contemporary poets have often frightened me. That Modern Poetry class beat me up, either because I didn't understand references in the poetry or I needed to read some poems a dozen times to begin to comprehend their meaning. And I thought of myself as a decent English student. Shakespeare I got with ease, so why couldn't I get these contemporaries?
I did however really like Galway Kinnell's Book of Nightmares that I had to do a paper on. I saw other themes that my instructor didn't though. I also met Louise Gluck at a book signing at my college. I hope to encounter individual poems and be able to discuss them intelligently.
Thanks for listening. I am looking forward to this class.
Matt

Introduce yourself to everybody and answer the following questions:
Why are you taking this class?What type (or form) of poetry do you enjoy most? Who are your favorite contemporary poets (living and writing now--no Robert Frost or Emily Dickinson)? List the title of a favorite poem. If you don't read comtemporary poets, why not?