Ekphrasis Syllabus Update

T: Completion of The Red Shoes
H: Discussion of fairytale. In-class composition.

Homework: Read Introduction through page 38 in Poets on Painters
Read: Matisse by Gertrude Stein
Write a poem based on what you were given in class today. (ten line minimum, any interpretation, any form)

T: Discussion of readings & poems. Invention of imaginary artist. (Looking at Pessoa, etc.)

H: Presentation and turn-in of postcard poems. Finishing discussion on reading. Starting The Realms of the Unreal.
Homework:
Ashbery Reading:
John D'Agata in Boston Review on John Ashbery
Biographical notes on John Ashbery

Perloff's review of Girls on the Run

This fascinating tie-in between poet John Ashbery (who wrote about Darger's Vivien Girls) and Joseph Cornell (the artist who inspired Simic's Dimestore Alchemy.

Homework & an overview of upcoming assignments:
1. Read pps. _____in Poets on Painters (page #s coming, my book is not with me as I write this.)

2. Begin to lay out a project written after one of the imaginary pieces by your imaginary artist. Remember that you can edit or modify the biography or add on to it to allow for the ideal piece of inspiration. Fully imagine the piece that you'll be using to inspire your piece. Which elements will inform what you do? Which lines or images will you modify or disregard? Will your piece reflect some aspect of the imaginary piece or it will continue the story, begin before or after the narrative of the piece you are working off of? If the piece isn't necessarily narrative, how will you use its style or suggested shapes and images to allow room for yours? This project will be due mid March (after I return from the conference and after you do your Darger/Ashbery pieces.) Begin thinking about your medium, as well as the details of the imagined pieces, body of work and biographical materials of the artist you're working from. Take notes, begin planning, as this will be one of your big assignments. For those of you going to Greece, I will be having you keeping notes in a journal that is by your imaginary artist, so really find a way to make this a figure to which you are fully-engaged, commited as well as intrigued and inspired by.

3. Your more immediate homework is a collage or mosaiced telling in the fashion of Darger. It needn't be a whole story but narrative should, in some way, come through the
That assignment is due on Tuesday March 6.


Your Cornell assignment will be select a piece of artwork or literature and depict it in a Joseph Cornell type box. This piece will not be due until late March. (Make sure you have your Dimestore Alchemy books on order as I'd like for you to be reading them by early March.

Advanced Creative Writing

ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING
KH 207
Mondays 12:30-3:20

01/23 Week One:
Introduction.
Students’ Project Goals.


01/30 Week Two:
Discuss collaboration.
Beckman & Rohrer on Poetry.org
Interview at PBQ (Beckman & Roher)
Amongst other things, a manifesto for collaboration (Seaton & Duhamel)

It’s not for everyone: collaboration. But in a class where most of you are more than mildly interested in writing, you are likely to meet the kind of people who have the right kinds of brains for you. Collaboration is one way to play while you work and to make of the play an exercise for new ways of exploring how it is that you write or might like to stretch your ways of writing.
In-Class Assignment: Collaborations
Homework:
1. Read and comment upon Alejandro’s story. (This will be emailed to you shortly.)
2. Read all of the introduction, plus the first three chapters of Writing Shapely Fiction. (Façade, Juggling, Iceberg.) The chapters are very short so it’s not as much as it seems.
3. Type up your collaborations (from in-class assignment) and bring two copies for the next class.
Homework:
Read Last Lap through Bear at the Door in Making Shapely Fiction.
Read and carefully critique Alejandro's story for next week's workshop.
Week Three
Workshop of Alejandro's story. Distribution of stories by Quinniqua and Seth.
Discussion of pages 15-47 in Making Shapely Fiction.

Studies in Greece.

The link should give you a sense of what the program looks like.

Advanced Creative Writing

Alejandro's story has now been sent to you via email. I don't know how the formatting will look and the challenges of doing things this way have led me to decide that we'll go back to my old method of writers bringing in enough copies for the class.

For this round, paste the story into word, print it and comment on it for the workshop.

I saw this article and thought some of you might find it useful and interesting.

Contemporary Literature Syllabus

Catalog ID: LA496 Section: 01 Course Name: Contemporary Literature
Course Prerequisite: LA190 / Lecture or LA190 / e-Learning
Term: Autumn Meeting Day(s): Tuesday, Thursday Meeting Time(s): 2-3:20 p.m.
Class Location: KH208 Faculty Name: Sophia Kartsonis
Class Blog: www.zeldaville.blogspot.com
Department: Liberal Arts Division: English Email: Skartsonis@ccad.edu

Office Hours: T 9-11, H 10-11, Office Location: Kinney Hall
Course Description:
Involves the critical study of recent literature emphasizing characteristic forms and themes. Attention is given to the short story, novel, poetry, drama and experimental prose forms. The course will involve a combination of written assignments, discussions, traditional essays and quizzes, as well as creative responses to works of various contemporary poets and writers. Texts and emphases will vary with professor. 3 credits, meets for a total of 3 hours.
Course Goal: Learning to read, discuss and analyze contemporary works of literature.

Course Learning Outcomes: Students will examine literature from both a reader’s and writer’s perspective. Through a variety of presentations, group work, verbal and written responses, students will familiarize themselves with the themes that good writing illuminates, as well as learn how the ability to critique a piece of writing can hone critical thinking skills in the world outside the book.

CCAD Learning Goals:
Through the careful reading and analysis of poetry, drama, and varieties of prose, the course is designed to help students connect words and images into thoughtful responses and help them to master the art of reading texts and real-life situations with care.
Required Course Materials:
N/A
Required Text(s):
The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Fiction (You can bargain-shop, go used, etc. but be sure you get this edition so that we can all have the same material from which to refer.)
All links and handouts provided in class or through the blog.

What: LA496-02 Contemporary Literature
When: Tuesdays & Thursdays 12:30-1:50
Where: KH 224
Who: Sophia Kartsonis
Required Texts:

Week One 01/17-01/19
T: Introduction
The Thursday readings will be discussed in class. (You didn't have reading homework on Tuesday but will on Thursday night.)
H: Discussion Forche’s The Colonel and the Notion of Appropriation
Homework: Those Winter Sundays Robert Hayden
Elegy for Jane Theodore Roethke
September 1, 1939 W.H. Auden
Channel Firing Thomas Hardy
(IF LINKS DON'T WORK, a GOOGLE SEARCH WILL YIELD THE TEXT. )
Homework: Read Everyday Use by Alice Walker.
WEEK TWO:
T: Discussion poems
H: Continued discussion
WEEK THREE 01/30-02/02
T: Discussion Everyday Use
H: Voices & Visions Robert Frost
Homework: Read all poems (on right links) and the biography (center screen) on the following link.

HOMEWORK REMINDER:

Stories I mentioned in class to be read:
The first two in your anthology: the Russell Banks and Donald Barthleme, as well as Girl by Jamaica Kinkaid.

Thursday Discussion of stories you talked about in groups, as well as Girl and My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke.

Ekphrasis

Next Reading:
The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Andersen

Some Ovid.

Also, here is some of Eric's video work
influenced by this piece of art.

Please read this poem by Charles Bukowski



I thought that we had a very interesting conversation about how ekphrasis operated though the Ovid to the Bruegel and then to both Auden and Williams. I wanted to point out that though the Auden poem (1938) came before the Williams (1960), and it would be highly unlikely that Williams was not aware of the Auden, it does not follow that they moved progressively. By this I mean that Williams was not working off of the Auden as much as he was, like Auden, coming at the painting with his own approach. This might help address the concern that a diminishment or a washing-away is taking place as was mentioned in class. Also, important to consider is that each act of art progressing from art to art functions very differently. I am including this article and particularly the table referred to as Figure 1 might help clarify the variety of ways that poems are written following a piece of art. The variations continue to multiply as we might add the second or third "ripple' from the stone thrown as the original artwork, but beyond those variations, there are the detours made when more than on poet or artist is responding to a piece and to those pieces and so on.

The possibilities become truly endless and the methods, not the least of which is the issue of whether a piece becomes more present in the subsequent artworks or washes away and leaves something nearly unrecognizable varies widely.

Just for fun here are some other examples of Bruegel's painting.

Edward Field Icarus
Diane Abse Bruegel in Naples
Michael Hamburger's Lines on Icarus and Ronald Bottrall's Icarus

Finally, if something seems missing in the treatment of a piece or you can see another way to do it, therein lies your idea/your poem. For example, Kelly's wish for there to be "more and not less" as the imitations continued (putting the tomatoes, mushrooms and more back into the "egg" analogy that she described in class) then there might be the poem she would write: the one that goes at the material as she wishes to see it approached. With all of these works and all of these approaches, it is my hope that you'll see gaps or find inspiration in how you would do it instead.