Sharon Olds Readings All Classes

Olds

on the T.S. Eliot Prize
http://www.concordmonitor.com/home/3994720-95/olds-prize-poet-award

Oprah magazine about her divorce (with some writing tips.) 
Title poem from Stag's Leap
And another time, same topic
Bio and all FIVE poems (click on see more poems)
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/sharon-olds#about

Older, widely-anthologized poem:
Sex Without Love by Sharon Olds


How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

Ekphrasis Syllabus Installment (contains minor revisions)

Week Seven

February 25-March 1

T Continued group discussion from Art and Artists, (Complete book is to have been read)
Homework: Choose three poems from the book and write a comparison essay that contrasts method, formal strategies, literary techniques and the ekphrastic elements.

H Sharon Olds discussion. (READING TONIGHT) Gallery/Museum Imaginary Artist Journal Assignment. Postponed to next Thursday (in class)

Week Eight
March 4-March 8

T SAR (no class)
Homework: Read The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Andersen

H: Roll Taken (RA will be here with the roll, if not, Caroline or Christine, please pass a sheet around and drop it off HERE IN KINNEY AT THE LA office in my box before going to the museum.)

Week Nine:
March 11-March 15

T Turn in comparison essay (see week of Feb. 25 for assignment)
Start Red Shoes, Discuss fairytale and film.

H Complete Red Shoes

ATTENTION CONTEMPORARY LIT

I am going to give you an extension on the elegy until Tuesday and will explain the assignment further in class. There are two reasons for this:
1. I have been receiving emails that lead to feel less than confident that you understand it well enough to be able to fully explore the topic and write the best possible poem for this assignment.

2. I am adding a small component to the assignment:  I would like you to write an 100-200 word analysis of your poem by discussing what the elegiac properties were that you employed and how you might have deviated or disregarded certain elements. You might also discuss which elegies you feel helped you to write yours. What kinds of things do you notice in those poems and what did you work into your poem?  You can discuss formal or literary strategies, whatever you feel would illuminate the reading.

Here are some more places to look over the elegy:
Poetry.org
Also, read:
Elegy for my Father, Who is Not Dead by Mark Strand
Elegy by Anne Stevenson
The Lost Pilot by James Tate
Mad Lib Elegy by Ben Lerner
Elegy by Pierre Mortary
Elegy by Daisy Fried
Elegy for a Chimneysweep Falling Inside It by Larry Levis
Elegy on a Toy Piano by Dean Young
Elegy by Lyn Heijinian
Psychoanalysis: an Elegy by Jack Spicer
Elegy with Surrealist Proverb as Refrain by Dana Gioia

Week Seven

February 25-March 1

T Turn in elegies. Discuss Welty.
Homework: Sharon Olds' reading selections
H Sharon Olds discussion. (READING TONIGHT) Gallery/Museum Imaginary Artist Journal Assignment. Postponed to next Thursday (in class)

Week Eight
March 4-March 8

T SAR (no class)
Homework:
H: Roll Taken (RA will be here with the roll, if not, I am asking one of you to  please pass a sheet around and drop it off HERE IN KINNEY AT THE LA office in my box.) Video.

Art and Writing and being Good Citizens in the Villages of Each

1. Creative Writers,  check out what a really talented, super prolific writer has to say about life, writing and the like. 

2. This is for my CW class, but as artists in an unique moment (in a school full of people a lot like you) you have an opportunity that extends beyond your education: find your peers, your critics, your muses, your crowd.  I wrote an essay on another blog that elaborates on this idea. It's here if you'd like to read it.

Ekphrasis: Your syllabus updated

Hey Gang,  I updated your class dates just to save you confusion. This is a courtesy. You should be following your syllabus and keeping up with all reading and written assignments.

Week Five

February 11-15

T Discussion of book pieces.

Homework:  Consider your imaginary artist’s body of work and write a 200 word review of a piece or a show. IF your artist is not famous or showing work, consider something less formal like a note from another artist or a self-critique in the fashion of Van Gogh’s letters to his brother.  We won’t deal with these until a week from today, so you have time.

H  Turn in 1. “Wikipedia page.”  2. Ode. 3. Postcard.

Valentines on Demand. We’ll work from the Crane Center.  The cafe area. More details to follow.

Homework: Select  two poems from each of the sections up to Photography and be ready to discuss how they work and what you liked or disliked about them. You can choose something for how much you admire it or how flawed you find it. Either can be an interesting conversation.  ( 2 EACH from Sculpture Garden, Artistry, Architecture, Photography.)    For next week, look over the work of Joseph Cornell  http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/cornell/    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Cornell

http://www.josephcornellbox.com/menu.htm

and make sure you read this review of Charles Simic’s book of poems based on the boxes (Dimestore Alchemy)  http://idiommag.com/2011/09/nostalgia-box/

Consider how his boxes operate in terms of ekphrastic properties, as well as how they tell or hold story. Considering that work, begin gathering small objects that will be meaningful to your artist.  What would a Cornell box as a shrine to your imaginary artist look like? Start scouring the world for things that would hold significance to him/her.

Week Six

February 18-22

T   Simic Discussion. Imaginary Artist Shrine Assignment announced. Due  March 18^th

H: Discussion of your reviews in class (see last Tuesday for homework details for this assignment.)  Homework: Selected pieces from the final three sections of the book. 

Contemporary Literature: Here's our discussion piece for Tuesday

I'm a little late, but it's short and you have plenty of time.

Happy Near Valentines Day, Zeldettes

"Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold."
Zelda Fitzgerald

Advanced Creative Writing

In Writing Shapely Fiction, please read the forward through the chapter called: A Day in the Life.
We'll be doing some in-class writing that deals with this reading, as well as discussion.

Glossary of Poetic Terms

Poetic Terms

Contemporary Literature: I Made the Deadline

And you get some fun reading homework. Enjoy!

How to Become a Writer by Lorrie Moore