How do poets address problems that resist direct explanation, such as questions of meaning, contradiction, belief, and uncertainty? In this advanced seminar, students will examine poetry as a sophisticated form of creative problem solving, one that transforms intellectual and emotional tensions into insight through language. Working with short but conceptually rich poems provided in class, students will analyze how poets identify and respond to complex problems using strategies such as metaphor, structure, voice, and constraint. Rather than focusing on literary terminology, the seminar emphasizes interpretive reasoning to determine what problem a poem engages, evaluating how effectively its creative choices address that problem, and defending interpretations with textual evidence. Students will then apply these strategies by composing original poems designed to grapple with a self-selected conceptual challenge (including paradox, ethical tension, or difficult belief) working under carefully designed constraints. This creative work is treated as an intellectual task, requiring purposeful decision-making and reflection on how meaning is constructed.