It's been a long, long hiatus, but I'm coming back to the idea of a conversation that extends outside of class. For now, read this poem that I just found and loved.

https://poets.org/poem/prayer-be-still-and-know

Writing Poetry THE LONG POEM

This is a great piece about the long poem and I have given you a great day to curl up with some hot tea and give it a read. I think it can help you imagine better how to work an idea into long poem form.

Randall Jarrell

Taije Silverman

Poetry Reading Tonight at Bossy Grrls

Bossy Grrl's
2598 N. High Street
Phone 614-725-5402

Hannah Stephenson, Darren Demaree,  Nathan Moore and yours truly are all reading tonight.
7:00 p.m.

HOW TO READ POETRY (SOME TIPS)

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/11/how-to-read-poetry-a-step-by-step-guide/380657/

Contemporary Lit. Classes

September

09/16 Tuesday: Dickinson in-class writing assignment

09/18 Thursday: Dickinson discussion completed.
HOMEWORK: Read A Brief Guide to Modernism
T.S. Eliot
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

09/23 Tuesday Introduction to Modernism. Begin Eliot discussion
Homework:
Read Wallace Stevens bio. 
The Snow Man
Sunday Morning

09/25 Thursday Discussion
Homework: Read William Carlos Williams bio.
Also: This is Just to Say
So Much Depends
Spring and All

09/30 Modernist discussion

Begin preparing for your Imitation assignment. The assignment (described below) will be due a week from today OCTOBER 2 and the BEGINNING of class, typed and proofread, etc.

The Imitation Poem and MANDATORY Process Letter:
Choose one of the poets whom we have discussed and write a poem (15 line minimum) that employs some of the same techniques.

In addition to the imitation, you will write a 200 hundred word minimum letter explaining the way you approached the assignment. Example: I chose to imitate Poem X. My poem is written in quatrains with a set rhyme scheme. Poem X is written in quatrains, as well, but the rhyme scheme ABAB whereas I used the ABBA pattern.....

OCTOBER

 H  10/02 Modernist discussion continues.


T 10/07 T.S. Eliot discussion complete Begin Wallace Stevens

H 10/09  Sunday Morning discussion

T 10/14 Complete Sunday Morning, start WCM discussion

H 10/16 William Carlos Williams
Homework: Read Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin
http://swcta.net/moore/files/2012/02/sonnysblues.pdf

White Angel by Michael Cunningham
http://moodle.wpcp.org/pluginfile.php/20868/mod_resource/content/1/White%20Angel-Cunningham.pdf

And only the section called To Robby in John Edgar Wideman's book
http://books.google.com/books?id=XHdSmT0CMwAC&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5&dq=watermelon+robby+letter+to&source=bl&ots=QOmyyiLipk&sig=rBwcsKiqCF4aaM5TnUKDWtJBfTw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HhQ9VNSsOpKcygScyYHoBg&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=watermelon%20robby%20letter%20to&f=false

T 10/21 Discussion of stories
Homework: Read Everyday Use by Alice Walker
http://www.cusd200.org/cms/lib7/IL01001538/Centricity/Domain/361/Everyday_Use.pdf

H 10/23 Discussion Everyday Use and themes intersecting it and our other stories.
Homework: Read Robert Frost's bio.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-frost
 Out, Out
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/238122
After Apple-Picking
Acquainted with the Night
Birches
Home Burial
Stopping By Woods...
For Once, the Something

T 10/28 & H 10/30 Dear Students:

I have made arrangements to have teachers come in and send around a roll sheet. Please be sure that you sign it.  In addition, we will be watching two videos on two literary figures. The instructions for both days are the same:

IN CLASS WHILE WATCHING VIDEOS ON EACH OF THE DAYS:
Please take down a minimum of eight quotes as you are watching the video. Choose statements that resonate for you and choose from the beginning, middle and later moments of the dvd. Write those quotes down as you hear them, they will be part of the assignment.

Homework:
Type the quotes at the top of your page.

Then, using at least three of those quotes, write some sort of 200 word response. The response can be a poem, a letter, a scene where one character is the literary figure or you can write a page about how that idea factors into your own creative process. Please proofread these and have them ready to be turned-in on Thursday, November 4. 

REMEMBER: THERE WILL BE ONE FOR EACH DAY, SO A TOTAL OF TWO WILL BE DUE on THURSDAY NOVEMBER 4.

EXAMPLE:
Let's say my literary figure video on Tuesday was Ezra Pound. I begin by listing the eight quotes that I used to inspire my Tuesday writing by typing-up those handwritten quotes that I took down while watching the video in class and placing them at the top of the page.
 1. A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.   2. War is made to make debt  3. Literature is news that stays news  4. If a nation's literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays. 5. Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea  6. Technique is the test of sincerity. If a thing isn't worth getting the technique to say, it is of inferior value. 7. One measure of a civilization, either of an age or of a single individual, is what that age or person really wishes to do. A man's hope measures his civilization. The attainability of the hope measures, or may measure, the civilization of his nation and time. 8. Any general statement is like a check drawn on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it.

Then, I decide how I want to go about approaching the assignment. Perhaps, I want to write a prose poem/imaginary letter back to Pound.

Dear Ezra,

Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea. The words you spoke caused you so much misery. 
What hadn't you botched? The gold confused with the dross? If literature is news that stays news, then that news was good news, but you spoke, Ezra and nations shook in their shoes for you. Not the way you intended, but the way that history holds its light straight through you so that the shadows inside you and the shadow you cast were monstrous. A slave is one who waits, Ezra, after all.

Or maybe, I've been working on a photo-series and see parallels in what he said about writing or what was said about him and my project. I might then use the quotes as take-off points to talk about my own process. 

One measure of a civilization, either of an age or of a single individual, is what that age or person really wishes to do. A man's hope measures his civilization. The attainability of the hope measures, or may measure, the civilization of his nation and time.
 I have been thinking a lot about hope lately. In some of my photography, I began to take an interest in the wear on a person's face. What it means to be worn and where in the lines there might be those formed by hope or what hope does when it leaves a body. I walk around, I take pictures. I think about hope. I look for it later in objects. What is that flower left on a fire hydrant, so posed, so deliberate, if not some measure of hope. I focus on it and try to consider the way I light it or the level of sharpness as another kind of attempt to frame hope. 

NOTE TO STUDENTS: These are just some examples I wrote quickly to show you how I might go about writing these pieces. Yours can be done employing two different techniques or using the same approach with both writers. I only ask that you have your eight quotes for EACH FIGURE at the top of the page and a minimum of 200 words used FOR EACH FIGURE. The way you go about using these ideas and words is largely open. Grammar, typing, and punctuation count.  Email me with any confusion.  

T  11/04 Frost Discussion
Homework:  Formal Poetry Examples:  Elizabeth Bishop "One Art" & "Sestina"
Dylan Thomas "Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night"

H 11/06 Frost & Hughes discussion continued. Intro to Formal Poetry Assignment.
Homework:  Your formal assignment will be due the Tuesday 11/18. Remember to include the 200 word minimum process sheet.  

T 11/11 Formal poetry discussion
Homework: Read A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
and Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates

H 11/13  Stories discussion.
Homework: New York School Poets & The Beats

T 11/18   Discussion
FORMAL POEMS & PROCESS SHEETS DUE
Homework: Confessionalist Poets

H 11/20  Confessionalists Discussion

T 11/25 Discussion continued.
H 11/27 NO CLASS. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Poet With Whom I Will be Dining This Evening

WRITING POETRY & CONTEMPORARY LIT.

Hey there,

In preparing for the dinner, I found some things by Mark Doty that might help you all as you prepare to write your poems.

This tracks the first images to the making of a specific poem.
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/souls-ice

This essay is on Halloween, William Blake and devils. Just because.

Students One & All, (But Especially Contemporary Lit.)

Writing Poetry your links:

Sonnet. Sestinas. Pantoums and Villanelles can be found here: poetryfoundation.org as well as poets.org  

And these glossaries of literary and poetic terms should be useful to all classes.  (They can really help you with your imitation and formal assignments and are invaluable for class discussion).

--------------

CONTEMPORARY LIT CLASSES VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:

I have to leave earlier than expected for the 30th Anniversary Celebration of Wick Poetry Center. My husband's sudden departure left me with some pressing responsibilities and the inability to address them all before I have to take off.

I have arranged for substitutes for both classes. Roll will be taken and a film will be shown. This is the one on Ezra Pound. It is fascinating and very important as we begin to discuss Modernism. Please be there and attentive to it. No phones, laptops or naps, please. This is a really interesting figure in poetry and I expect everyone to be quiz-ready and fully present for the showing. Make our class look good. Have a wonderful weekend. Email me with any questions or concerns.

Thanks for understanding. Please know that I go in representation of our fine school and all of you of whom I could not be more proud. See you next week!

All Classes

This is one of the best contemporary poets we've got. AND he is a visual artist. And a musician. Who says you can't be art-school all-around rock stars?

Watch this and we'll talk about some of his work later.

Contemporary Lit.

September 9-11

T: Quiz, Whitman discussion
Homework: Essay on Dickinson's Fasiscles
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dickinson/fascicles.htm


Biography
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/emily-dickinson

This link gets you to a listing of the poems
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/emily-dickinson#about

Please read the following poems:

A Narrow Fellow in the Grass

Because I Could Not Stop for Death

A Route of Evanescence

I Dwell in Possibility

I Felt a Funeral in my Brain

My Life had Stood--a Loaded Gun

Tell all the truth but tell it slant

There's a Certain Slant of Light

I Would Not Paint a Picture


Thursday: Dickinson discussion (be quiz-ready, look up an words you don't know as you are reading)

Contemporary Literature Section 01 & 02 Homework Week One

T Introduction.
Discussion of Course goals and readings. Your readings will be posted by author and title and you will be expected to locate the text.* This is my compromise in exchange for a textbook and I will be expected you to take full responsibility for finding the posted works. Please note that this course will be heavier in poetry content, as it is easy to discuss a smaller piece fully in class and to teach close reading through it. We will look at other genres, but if you have a real aversion to verse, this may not be the section for you. Homework: Re-Read: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/013.html and come in with a 250 word minimum analysis of the poem. Note any literary techniques it employs. Rhyme scheme or lack. Everything you notice about its structure and construction. Then address content. What is a one line plot summary for the poem? What is the tone? Is any stanza more sincere than any other?

H Discussion of close reading. Literary techniques. How to read and discuss literature.
Homework: Come in with one title of a piece of writing that affected you.
Write down what it was and why, as well as anything you notice about its form and construction. We will discuss each of these in class next week.
Read: As a summer send-off, I thought we’d look at this poem by John Tobias (it gets taught in high schools, and you might have read it. If so, check it out again for discussion.)

http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~hsiao/verse/watermelon.html
Reflections On a Gift of Watermelon Pickle Received from a Friend Called Felicity

Also, this biographical essay on Walt Whitman http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/walt-whitman

and this one:
Adventures in Anaphora http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/article/246170

and this essay: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/246218

PLUS the following poems:
O Captain! My Captain! http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174742

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer Speak http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174747

Song of Myself 36 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182375

Please come to class “quiz ready” on these materials. Take notes for discussion. The more you participate, the more likely your grade will reflect that boost.

Reading Homework

Amy Hemphel Aimee Bender Selections from Sudden Fiction p. 1-19 (All the stories available in the preview of google docs through The Twirler)

Three Elements

A stolen ring, fear of spiders, and a sinister stranger. A taxi, an old enemy, and Valentine's Day. Identical twins, a party invitation, and a locked closet. A broken wristwatch, peppermints, and a hug that goes too far. Aerobics, a secret diary, and something unpleasant under the bed. An ex-boyfriend, a pair of binoculars, and a good-luck charm. An annoying boss, a bikini, and a fake illness. The first day of school, a love note, and a recipe with a significant mistake. A horoscope, makeup, and a missing tooth. A campfire, a scream, and a small lie that gets bigger and bigger.

WRITING FICTION READINGS

Week One Monday: Introduction. In-class writing from paint swatch phrases. Tension discussion: story vs. incident. HOMEWORK: Readings: Girl by Jamaica Kinkaid Hills Like White Elephants Ernest Hemingway What we Talk About When we Talk About Love Raymond Carver How to Become a Writer Lorrie Moore Lust Susan Minot Polish your in-class story/scene/start and bring in a minimum of 250 words to discuss in class. For anyone who needs to catch up, here is a version of what we did in class: For the writing portion, we used words/phrases off paint swatches and began with the line: We stepped into -------, then ------------- and then Begin a story by filling in those blanks and continuing to write from there using as many of the phrases from the paint swatch "word bank" as possible. Word bank: Fine Wine, Tidal, Stormfront, Decanting, Graphite, Sailor's Bay, Ink-Dark Moonscape, Pink Damask, Fire Alarm, Plum jam, Madeline steps, January sea, Dune, Licorice Twist, Coldwater Rose, Midnight sidewalk, Orion's belt, Biscuit, Baby blanket, Sunwashed Coast, Buttery.

Contemporary Lit. The Readings for Presentations.

9:30 Class: Instruction Manual John Ashbery . 2645 EmilyMasley Ulysses Gwendolyn Brooks p. 2504 Timothy Kuhne Portrait of a Madonna Tennessee Williams p. 2320 What we Talk about when we Talk about Love Raymond Carver p. 3013 Lady Lazarus Sylvia Plath p. 2840 In the Field by Tim O' Brien The Fish Elizabeth Bishop 2314 The Man Moth Elizabeth Bishop Dova ste Amore Laurence Ferlinghetti p. 2256 Young Housewife Anne Sexton 2834 Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth 2797 For the Union Dead Robert Lowell 2504 Hart Crane Robert Creeley 2634-35 Stations by Audre Lorde 2896 ------------------------------------------------ 12:30 Class Root Cellar Theodore Roethke p. 1906 I put on my Jacket. p. 2661 Heavy Women Sylvia Plath (google search) Ducks Naomi Shihab Nye Entropy Thomas Pynchon Beneath the Freeway Lorna Dee Cervantes Conversion of the Jews Roth The Rats Philip Levin 2663 Where are you Going... Joyce Carol Oates 3043 America Allen Ginsberg Counting Small-Boned Bodies Robert Bly 2755 My Heart Frank O'Hara 2641 I am a Cowboy... Ishmael Reed 3056 Who Among You Knows... Garrett Hongo 2945 From a Survivor Adrienne Rich

Contemporary Literature

04/14 Discussion of stories. Homework: These are the stories we will be discussing next: The Conversion of the Jews by Philip Roth Cathedral by Raymond Carver and To Robby (go to this link: http://cf.linnbenton.edu/artcom/english/thornbs/upload/Our%20Time.pdf) and read page 2 beginning with "Stories are letters" and read to the bottom of the page. Homework: Select a piece of literature from your anthology and respond to it in a piece of art (any genre or medium including prose/music/photography/poetry/visual art/film/animation/comic etc.) Be prepared to present your piece to the class on April 24th. An example: I read Poppies by Sylvia Plath and produce a series of photographs taken at an abattoir (slaughterhouse) or or the Bluebird response in video that we watched in response to Bukowski or... you name it. THESE PIECES MUST BE READY ON TIME in order for me to be able to get them graded and allow for any extra time needed. On April 14th or 16th, please plan to let the class know what you will be presenting upon so that we might read it in advance of your presentation. This will be your final assignment for the course, so make it meaningful. (When you arrive in class on Wednesday, go up to the board and write the title, author, and page number.)

Contemporary Literature Readings

Reading Homework: Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin Scarlet Ibis by James Hearst White Angel by Michael Cunningham Everyday Use by Alice Walker The Conversion of the Jews by Phillip Roth 04/07-04/11 M: Discussion of Baldwin, Hearst and Cunningham W: Discussion of Roth & Walker Homework: Reading: The Beat Movement Introduction The Source Homework: Select a piece of literature from your anthology and respond to it in a piece of art (any genre or medium including prose/music/photography/poetry/visual art/film/animation/comic etc.) Be prepared to present your piece to the class, on the last week of April. Prior to that, by April 14, please plan to let us know what you will be presenting upon so that we might read it in advance of your presentation. This will be your final assignment for the course, so make it meaningful. 04/14-04/18 M Readings discussed W Readings discussed

Contemporary Lit. Schedule

Mar. 24-26
M Formal verse discussion. Elizabeth Bishop's Sestina and her villanelle: One Art, as well as Dylan Thomas's Do Not Go Gentle into the Good Night.  (NOTE: Both links to the villanelles can be found off to the left of the description of the villanelle on the link above.)  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-term/sonnet:

W    “  “  “ continued.

(For Reference) Formal Poems:   Wilfred Owen. John Ashbery, James Cummins, Elizabeth Bishop, (see above) Marianne Moore, Robert Hayden

You can elect to write either a sonnet, villanelle or sestina for your formal verse assignment. That poem, in addition to a short note detailing your process will be due one week from today. 

Reading Homework:  Read:  Everyday Use by Alice Walker. Cathedral by Raymond Carver. (Walker and Carver to be discussed on Monday)

FRIDAY: Screening of Angels in America (Canzani) AND from 5-8  the Botticelli rebranding event in the Canzani atrium. 

Mar 31-April 2

M  Discussion Carver & Walker

W10/08  
Formal Poems  & process notes due at the beginning of class.
HOMEWORK:  Reading

April 7-9

M  Discussion

Homework: 

W Discussion  Formal poems due today.

April 14-16

M
W

April

M NY School Readings. 

H 10/25  Discussion

Homework: Charles Bukowski readings

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/charles-bukowski

At your leisure:

http://bukowski.net/poems/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsc3ItAKSLc


Apr 21-23 
M

W

Apr 28-30
M

W

May 7-9

Adv. CW Writing Prompts

In Russia, a former schoolteacher was accused of stabbing a friend during a discussion of whether poetry or prose was the most important literary form.

Man arrested allegedly trying to sell jars of stolen brains at Dairy Queen.

Border collie was re-homed after chewing through the wheel arch of her owner's Asten Marten.

Two performance artist are living on hamster wheel for ten days.

A man arrested in Philadelphia for exposing his genitalia while fondling Swiss cheese.

Australian performance artist knits from wool inserted in her vagina.

ADV. CW Here is your reading

From the Pushcart Prize anthology (for my creative writing class,) please read the following for next week's discussions.

The Piece Need Not be Built by Andrew Zolot  (Thom G.)  p. 302
Self-Port. with Exit Words by Ocean Vuong (Jared S.) p. 257
Ways to Begin  by Rachel Rose (Cooper S.) p. 41