A push for diversity in the English department's curriculum and a professor's fondness for poetry have spurred the development of the University's first literature course focused solely on African-American poets.

English 497 -- African-American Poetry will be offered this Spring Semester on a trial run and will have enough room for about 40 students. But courses on African-American novels and prose have been offered by the department before.

William J. Harris, associate professor of English and the course's instructor, said the course is a part of a larger project -- a change within the English department "expanding beyond just the interest in white-male writers" and a move toward a more diversified body of material in its courses.

Heather Salko (senior-English) said she can't take the course because she is graduating in the fall but thinks its addition is a positive one for future students.

"For so long the English major has focused just on the greats . . . I think it's about time minority writers are given the credit they deserve," Salko said.

Harris said the survey course will begin with African-American spirituals from slave music and finish with contemporary rap lyrics. Authors he plans to study in the course include Langston Hughes, Audre Lorde, Robert Hayden and rap artists Public Enemy and MC Hammer.

"There is a real continuity that runs through the poetry . . . we will watch that development," Harris said, citing the influence black militant poetry and its political consciousness during the 1960s had on today's rap lyrics as one example.

The class -- which Harris described as one that "fulfills your soul" in a flier advertising the course -- also fulfills the English department's 400-level elective requirement and its 400-level American literature requirement.

Robert Secor, a professor and English department head, said the addition of English 497 marks a part of its effort to bring the African-American culture to students.

"The whole profession has been looking at ways that we can expand what authors we should be teaching and what voices we should be listening to," Secor said. "We realize a lot of voices have not been heard, voices of women and voices of minorities."

Secor said English 497 is the beginning of the department's additions to diversify its curriculum. Secor said eight or nine African-American literature courses will be phased in within the next several years.