WRITING FICTION

HOMEWORK:
Read Jamaica Kinkaid's Girl: http://www.my-island-jamaica.com/girl_by_jamaica_kincaid.html

For those of you who were stuck on the internal monologue assignment, this might help you generate a piece.

Remember to type in what you have and bring it to class to discuss what you wrote or (if you want to) to read it or part of it aloud.

READING LIST FOR LA496-02 Contemporary Literature

What: LA496-02 Contemporary Literature
When: Tuesdays & Thursdays 12:30-1:50
Where: KH 224
Who: Sophia Kartsonis
How:
Required Texts:
Against Forgetting, edited by Carolyn Forche. Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; ISBN-10: 0393309762
All Screwed-Up by Steve Fellner. Publisher: Benu Press; First edition (June 8, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0981516335 ISBN-13: 978-0981516332

READING LIST FOR LA498-05 Poetry of Witness & Survival

What: LA498-05 The Poetry of Witness & Survival
When: Tuesdays & Thursdays 9:30 a.m.-10:50 a.m.
Where: KH 224
Who: Instructor; Sophia Kartsonis
How:
Required Texts:
Against Forgetting, edited by Carolyn Forche. Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; ISBN-10: 0393309762
Sasha Sings Laundry on the Line by Sean Thomas Dougherty Publisher: BOA Editions Ltd. (September 21, 2010) ISBN-10: 1934414395 ISBN-13: 978-1934414392
Blind Date with Cavafy by Steve Fellner
Publisher: Marsh Hawk Press (March 31, 2007) ISBN-10: 097855552X ISBN-13: 978-0978555528

PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST

The Snow-Storm

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

1835 [1841] Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sliding into Home Fiction/Contemporary Lit./Poetry

Writing Fiction
Tuesday 12/14/10 Turn in final stories. Workshops by request.
Thursday 12/16/10 Continuation of Workshops (Watch the blog in case of severe weather.)

Contemporary Literature
Tuesday 12/14/10 Continued discussion. Possible film.
Thursday 12/16/10 Optional final day. Watch blog in case of severe weather.

WRITING POETRY

Wednesday 12/15/10 Final poems Workshop.

HAVE A WONDERFUL HOLIDAY AND BE SAFE!

Contemporary Lit. Assignment

Write an elegy to an abstraction or inanimate object.

Consider Neruda's Odes for tone or the way O'Hara wrote of Billie Holiday's death or Lana Turner's collapse. Keep the tone more colloquial, full of details and a strong sense of voice. When writing about abstractions, avoid using many of them.

The poem must be ten lines minimum and brought in on Thursday, typed.