On a Monday afternoon, poet Joshua Bennett is chatting with early arrivals to his class, asking how they spent their weekends. The wistful chords of the 1979 Bill Evans jazz album “We Will Meet Again” play in the background. It’s a relaxed, convivial start to a new MIT Literature class that explores the relationship between poetry and the social lives of everyday people. Bennett, a visiting professor in spring 2023 who will join the MIT faculty as a full-time professor of literature and Distinguished Chair of the Humanities this summer,…
