Friday, May 28, 2010

FYI MY Poets, I'll miss you

As one of my former students said to me and as I now steal from her:

Keep it summer!

If this class taught nothing else, go more vivid, more "feelingly" and with great attention into June and everything after...

And, keep in touch,
s
:-)

VOTE HERE FOR KATE & SOPHIA!

http://www.yourmic.com/videos/reel-love-film-contest/464/last-leg.html

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

26 w Brainstorm for long poem and revisions

27 h Revisions or revision due. Long poem in class writing prompts. BE HERE.(This should be very useful.

28 f Long Poems Festival. (Yours.)

Monday, May 24, 2010

Some Thoughts After Today's Class

While reviewing manuscripts this afternoon, I came upon a poem about the giant squid and how it essentially ate with its brain. http://invertebrates.si.edu/giant_squid/page3.html

I thought about Meghan's poem and the possible intersections b/w its picking brains intellectually, picking brains in zombie-fashion and the squid's other "take" on that territory. If useful, feel free to use that.

Also, I thought about the poems of Neruda, Sexton and so on, and their use of objects. We might consider some of these as we are examining one another's object poems.
Neruda: http://www.motherbird.com/artichoke.html
http://motherbird.com/smell_wood.html
http://www.motherbird.com/lemonode.html
http://motherbird.com/olive_oil.html
http://motherbird.com/ode_piano.html

Anne Sexton:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc88gjuQCR8
M 24 Sestina workshop. Introduction to 13 Ways poem.

Homework: 13 Views Typed-up, edited. Look to this poem for a way to do this: http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/stevens-13ways.html
1. See your object in a larger-scene.
(Ex: Downtown, between the towering bank
and the boarded-up apartment building
with a woman's name, in the cursive lower
case ls and ds, were slightly bent paperclips.
Include a character's simile towards the object or some version of it.
2. I was feeling like the dying-out of cursive,
loopy, out-of-date, de-scriptive but inscrutable.
3. The paper clip held the details of our home's value,
our marriage's depreciation.
A scene of two people and the object. Two simple declaritive statements of description (only concrete terms) only one of which need mention the object.
4. Clippers,one snip,
and gone.
A clipper, a clip
holding-on.
5.
Make a simple statement of dialogue and include the object.
To define the paperclip, I examined the suffix.
To define clip, I looked up clipper
1. a person or thing that clips or cuts...6. a person or thing that moves along swiftly.
6.....

Note for Michelle: Bring your object and copies of sestina in tomorrow. You'll workshop in reverse and we'll have you all caught up by Wednesday. (We'll workshop your sestina while others workshop 13 Views and then you'll be right on board for the long poem and revision workshops.

T 25 Workshop Thirteen Ways. Introduce other long poems for larger assignment.
Homework:The Long Poem Look to: T.S. Eliot, Hart Crane, Walt Whitman, Eliot Khalil Wilson, Anne Sexton,

Monday, May 17, 2010

MAY (flowers brought to you by April showers—exact rhyme
M 17 Introduction.
Poetic Terms, what is a poem. Discussion of blank verse and free verse. Voices and Visions Robert Frost. Free Verse: Frank O’Hara: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/ohara/ohara.htm
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=5092
Fun to Browse through online (Poet Among Painters)
http://books.google.com/books?id=31Pqv32Fh0QC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Frank+O%27Hara&source=bl&ots=uAhwh65_YB&sig=buEKI5iTf6_xVgp1d4ampXehGaQ&hl=en&ei=XiXxS-DzJsT38Aby2ND9Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=12&ved=0CDQQ6AEwCw#v=onepage&q&f=false
In-Class Writing.
Homework: Bring in some song lyrics that you consider to be a poem or to be poetic. If possible, bring us the means to hear or play the song, as well as access to the lyrics on the page. (You can use the computer and projector so as to save the environment some grief.) Anyway, using your new shiny terms of poetry, talk about how and why this piece strikes you as poetic.

T 18 Song lyrics. Frost introduction. Discussion of more terms, formal elements. In-class writing of couplets.
Homework: Write a poem that employs at least six of the new terms you have been learning. You can count anaphora, metaphor, simile, etc. The poem should make use of one public belonging that feels somehow personal to the narrator (like that moment before entering the Lincoln Tunnel--one of those public things you've no right to but feel you own -mangled paraphrase of Jacqueline Osherow)

W 19 Introduction to Formal Verse.
http://www.utm.edu/departments/english/everett/sonnet.htm
http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/sonnet.html
http://www.sonnets.org/basicforms.htm


Homework: Write a sonnet. Bring in enough copies for the class.

H 20 Sonnet Workshop. Villanelles, Pantoums. Homework: Write a villanelle or pantoum, bring 7 copies.
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5796
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5786

F 21Sestina
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/03/ahead/sestina.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sestina
http://www.uni.edu/~gotera/CraftOfPoetry/sestina.html


Homework: Write a sestina to be workshopped on Monday. Bring 7 copies/ ALSO, don't forget your TWO OBJECTS. One object will be one that you will want to ruminate upon in a number of stanzas, the second will be one that you would be willing to "donate" to another student. They don't need to be anything alike and they can be something from nature, a thrift shop, a playing or post card, a shard of pottery, a found pinecone or seashell, anyway, a thing, compelling enough that someone might want to work with it for some time.
Two-Day CaesuraM 24 The Long Poem Hart Crane, Walt Whitman, Eliot KhalilWilson, Anne Sexton,

MINIMESTER

Writing Poetry
Monday through Friday 9:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
Sophia Kartsonis
zeldaville@yahoo.com

Text: Rhyme’s Reason by John Hollander. Available online at Amazon for a song. Find any edition in any (reasonable) condition you can and order it today.
For now the glossary of poetic terms gives a rough and simple set of tools.
Various online poems. Please have a printout available for days we are discussing them.

Course Policy
Attendance:
Because we are taking a fast train through the subject matter, as summer courses often require, attendance will be crucial. We will be reading a lot and dealing with that reading in class with writing assignments and activities.
You will be afforded one absence for reasons I will not need to know. I do not excuse any absence after that first one and if you accrue two absences (as the course is so short,) I will likely ask that you drop the course.

Tardies: After two you have an absence.

Grades: You will be graded heavily on class participation and attendance: (30%) Your written work will comprise 70% of your total grade. Perfect attendance does not mean that you have that 30% guaranteed. I expect lively discussions and real engagement with the topics. I hate to resort to pop quizzes, but if during discussion it becomes apparent that a few of us have done the reading and the rest are coasting, I will administer a quiz.

The written work will consist of some reading responses, many in-class exercises, and the “letters to the authors” and comments on workshop poems. Please be generous and thoughtful in your assessments and comments on other’s work.

Cell Phones: Please turn them off. Brain surgery can wait.

I am available to conference with you at any time throughout the course. Please contact me in class or through the email address and we can set a time to meet.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Botticelli Balloons Go Far!

Kudos again to Chelsea for the magical idea and to all of you for participating.
-----------------------

To whom it may concern. my husband was walking in the woods and found 2 of these poems. One is titled doesn't matter by Brie And the other said Fly little ballon way up high. Float away into the azure skies. Find your way to some distant land, find your way to someone's heart. didn't give an author. We live in a little town called Bergholz, Ohio. It's about on hour drive to Pittsburg,Pa. and 3 hour drive to Cleveland, Ohio. We live out in the country. Please let me know where these poems came from. Very interesting. Hope I was some help. Have a blessed day. Margie Nighman




---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Date: Fri, May 7, 2010 at 5:05 PM
Subject: found bottle
To: botticellimagazine@gmail.com


Hi, i found your balloon on the shore of Pine Lake in North Lima, Ohio. The poem reads "Many are inflated but never rise, the lost balloons in their eyes."

One of Your Guys RIP

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/arts/artsspecial/11frazetta.html?ref=obituaries