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SyllabusWRITING AND READING POETRY (E211-1)
Professor Joyce Peseroff Office: Wheatley 6-062 Office Hours: M 5:30-6:45, W 2:30-3:45 Phone: 617-287-6714 and by appointment E-mail: joyce.peseroff@umb.edu SYLLABUS Texts: Required—1) Schakel, Peter & Jack Ridl. 250 Poems: A PortableAnthology (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003) 2) Access to the web through your computer or through computers on campus. We will be using the website <www.litandwiting@umb.edu> for assignments, notes, and for posting your work for comment. Instructions on how to access the website and post material will be given after the first week of class.
Recommended—1) Baldick, Chris. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) or any other glossary of literary terms and usages 2) Access to good dictionary, such as the Oxford English Dictionary or American Hertiage Dictionary, that includes word derivations as well as usage Goals and Requirements
Goal and Methods: This class is an introduction to the process of writing your own poems and learning to be a cogent, helpful reader of others’ work. We’ll become familiar with various examples of the genre by reading a variety of poems from various literary periods, with an emphasis on modern and contemporary work. During the course of the semester, we’ll be writing in class and out of class, using individual and group exercises, free writing, and a certain number of formal assignments. Some of these poems we’ll share in a formal writing workshop; others we will simply read aloud to each other. In addition, we will read and discuss poems from 250 Poems, and from various handouts and websites. We will be writing every week, either in or out of class. Each week we will discuss poems from the list of readings as well as from your own work. Each of you will have at least one of your poems read and discussed by the entire group. This formal writing workshop is meant to be friendly and comfortable for both writers and readers. Class discussion will be complimented by two individual conferences with me, during Week 6 and Week 12. In additional, you’ll be posting and responding to posts on the class website throughout the semester. A schedule for the workshop will be distributed later in the term. When we discuss student poems please remember the following: 1.Download poems scheduled for discussion before you come to class, and write your responses directly on the worksheet. For each poem, consider the following: a) How does the poem make you feel? b) What’s the story? c) What imagery does the poet use? d)What musical devices—including rhyme, meter, repetition, and line breaks—does the poet use? Anything we don’t get to in class you may post on the class website. 2. Underline examples of good writing you find in the poem. Ask if there’s more information you’d like to have about the poem. Question places where the poem is unclear to you. Comments should be descriptive ("I didn't understand this part," rather than, "I don't like this part") and constructive ("What if you start with the image in line15?" rather than, "I'm bored until I get to the end"). 3. Be enthusiastic!!!! about what you like, and try to explain why you like it. 4. If you feel a poem is already complete, or if you've written a poem that's too personal to share with others, don't bring it to workshop. I'll be happy to discuss these poems with you during my office hours. 5. Proofread your work before you distribute it. Requirements: There are five requirements for this class: 1. Every week, you will do a writing assignment either in or out of class, involving new work or revision of a poem you have begun. Most of these assignments will be collected and read by me. Everything I read will be returned with my comments. None of these individual assignments are graded, but you will receive a midterm evaluation after your first conference to give you an idea of where you stand regarding your grade.
2. You will attend one poetry reading during the semester. The Engish department has scheduled several readings this fall, and we’ll be attending at least one of them as a class. Other campus groups often schedule and advertise poetry readings here. I’ll be posting information regarding readings on the class website as I receive them. During our last class, we will have an informal poetry reading for work done during the term.
3. You will write one short (2-4 pg) paper on how a poem of your choice has affected you as a writer. This paper is due MONDAY, OCT. 23. Please schedule accordingly; late papers are discouraged and always downgraded. 4. At the end of the semester you will hand in a portfolio of 8-10 poems you have worked on and revised during the semester. This project is due MONDAY, DEC. 18—THE MONDAY AFTER OUR LAST CLASS (you may, if you wish, hand in your portfolio early). As part of this process, you will have two required conferences with me, scheduled in lieu of class (see weekly syllabus). 5. Participation: This is a seminar and workshop, and your presence and participation are expected and required. Participation includes attendance, keeping up with the reading, discussing assigned readings and other students’ work, fulfilling all class requirements, (including conferences and the required poetry reading), and making use of the class website.You are required to post at least three of your own poems, and respond to three postings by other students. Grades: I base grades on the amount of work you do during the semester. Work is measured by the assignments you complete on time, the revisions you make to your own poems, the care you take in reading the poems of others, your presence and participation in class, and the progress you've shown from beginning to end of semester. Your final portfolio is the best measure of the work you’ve done during the semester, and will be the most important element of your grade (60%). Equal weight (20%) will be given to the short paper and to your level of class participation. You will receive a midterm evaluation after your first individual conferences. Remember that 80% of the work takes 20% of the time. If you complete assignments in a timely manner, come to class regularly, and contribute a minimum amount to class discussion, you’ll receive a B- in the course.
Attendance policy—You are limited to THREE unexcused absences. Unexcused absences are those for which you have not made arrangements in advance, and which do not involve illness or an emergency. If your exceed three unexcused absences, or if for any reason you miss more than six classes, you risk failing the course. LATENESS: If you’re 15 minutes late to 5 classes, you’ve missed the equivalent of one entire class. Persistent lateness will be noted and will affect your grade. I look forward to working with each of you during the semester. SYLLABUS OF READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS*All poems are from 250 Poems: A Portable Anthology unless otherwise noted. Please read through the end of this syllabus, including final paragraphs marked with asterisks. WEEK 1 (9/6): Introduction; in-class exercise: creating a (self) portrait using a series of metaphors. William Shakespeare, “That Time of Year” (9); Sylvia Plath, “Metaphors” (221).
WEEK 2 (9/11): Coming to your senses: using imagery rather than abstract language in your poems. In-class exercise: writing “An Autumn Afternoon at U. Mass.” T.S. Eliot, “Preludes,” part I (151); Elizabeth Bishop, “The Fish” (170); James Welch, “Christmas Comes to Mocccasin Flat,”(246), Robert Pinsky, “Shirt,”(247); Jane Kenyon, “From Room to Room” (275).
WEEK 3 (9/18): Extended metaphor: Life is Like…. Creating a metaphor circle; some differences between metaphor and simile. See "Resources" section of class website for Langston Hughes, “Mother to Son,” and Gail Mazur, “Baseball”; Joy Harjo, “She Had Some Horses” (291) WEEK 4 (9/25): ): The uses of narrative: how a poem tells a story; reinventing childhood, myth and fairy tale. Elizabeth Bishop, “In the Waiting Room” and George Bogin, “Cottontail” (website); Anne Sexton, “Cinderella,” (211); Ethridge Knight, “Hard Rock Retruns to Prison…” (224); Louise Gluck, “Circe’s Power” (website), Mark Halliday, “Functional Poem” (283) ). Schedule for workshops beginning Week 9 will be distributed—please do not miss your assigned date(s)! WEEK 5 (10/2): Writing in forms: stanza, scansion, alliteration, assonance and rhyme, both full and slant; Shakespearan, Petrarchan, and American sonnets. P.B. Shelley, “Ozymandius” (64), John Keats, “When I Have Fears…” (67), E.B. Browning, “How Do I Love Thee?” (83), Claude McKay, “America,” (154).
WEEK 6 (10/11): Columbus Day holiday: No classes 10/9. Screening of Bill Moyers, “A Life Together” 10/11. WEEK 7 (10/16): Individual conferences; no class meeting this week. Bring all drafts of poems you’ve worked on so far during the semester.
WEEK 8 (10/23): Writing in forms, cont’d; word choice and word order in creating the sestina and villanelle. Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art” (172); Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle…” (178); Alice Fulton, “You Can’t Rhumboogie…” (298), Alberto Rios, “Nani,” (299), Elizabeth Bishop, “Sestina,” http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/03/ahead/sestina.html SHORT PAPER DUE 10/23. WEEK 9 (10/30): Breaking the free-verse line (see website) Workshop begins and continues through Week 15.
WEEK 10 Assignments(11/6): Dramatic monologue and dialogue: writing a poem in the voice of someone other than yourself. Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess” (89); T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (147); Ai, “Why Can’t I Leave You?” (273) WEEK 11 (11/13): Found poetry: looking for possibilities around you. Anne Carson, “Sumptuous Destitution” (287), Bern Porter, <http://www.ubu.com/historical/porter/porter.html> WEEK 12 (11/20): POETRY READING: JUDITH HARRIS AND JEFFREY HARRISON; screeening of Bill Moyers' "A Life Together" 11/22. WEEK 13 (11/27) Individual conferences; no class meeting this week. Bring all drafts of poems you plan to include in your final portfolio.
WEEK 14 (12/4): Revision workshop WEEK 15 (12/11): Revision workshop, cont’d. Favorite poems and class poetry reading: bring a poem by an author we haven’t read to share with the rest of the class, and read one of your own FINAL PORTFOLIO DUE MONDAY, DEC. 18 *Please note that this syllabus and its assignments are subject to alteration. You are responsible for any changes announced in class or posted on the class website, so please check the website at regularly. Exchange phone #s or e-mail addresses with a buddy so you’ll keep up-to–date with reading and writing assignments should you miss a class. **A transcipt of Bill Moyers’ interview with Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon is available in his volume The Language of Life (Doubleday, 1995). The segment with Jane Kenyon is reprinted in A Hundred White Daffodils, by Jane Kenyon (St. Paul, MN: Graywolf, ***Students with Disabilities: If you have a disability and feel you will need accommodations in order to complete course requirements, please contact the Ross Center for Disability Services (Campus Center, 2nd fl., Rm, 2100) at 617-287-7436. 1999).
DISCOVERING THE POWER OF METAPHOR by Joyce Peseroff Good poetry requires powerful language. Drafting a poem, we want our verbs to be energetic; our adjectives need to surprise as well as describe. A bright constellation of images, such as the ones readers find in any number of Shakespeare’s sonnets, allows a poem to develop its own imaginative landscape. And figures of speech allow the poet who creates them to extend this landscape further. Commonly used figures of speech include simile, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and personification. Metonymy substitutes the name of one thing for another closely associated with it, often replacing an abstraction with a concrete noun, as when “birth to death” becomes “cradle to grave.” Synecdoche uses the part to stand for the whole; “Lend me your ears,” Shakespeare writes, when Antony wants the crowd’s entire attention. Personification can give a human face to the world, as when Jane Kenyon praises the “cheerful worm in the cheerful ground.” Simile and metaphor are both figures of comparison. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Shakespeare asks in his sonnet. His similes make comparisons by using the terms “like” or “as;” metaphors dispense with these words altogether. It seems to me that the act of comparison is both preverbal and basic to human development. I watch a very young infant in her crib, gazing at the fists she brings close to her face, looking from one to the other. The hands are similar but not quite identical. When babies learn to talk, every animal is, at first, a “doggy” (or “kitty,” or “buh-ie”). Older babies learn to discriminate between doggy and kitty, horsie and moo-cow, elaborating distinctions that become more and more sophisticated. Like/unlike is built into the brain, and language that makes connections along these paths strikes deep into human experience. Of the two figures of speech offering comparison, metaphor provokes more complex and various associations in the reader’s mind. Similes often associate themselves with one or two individual features. “Cheeks like roses” have petals but no thorns, and in the phrase, “small as the ear of a mouse,” no aspect of mousiness—color, scent, or the sound of one skittering across your kitchen counter—matters other than size. Or take the statement, “She’s like a sunset.” The reader may associate sunsets primarily with natural beauty, with pink and golden hues, or with a certain flamboyance. Compare this to the sentence, “She is sunset.” Added to the associations mentioned before, and deepening them, is the prospect of the day’s decline. Beauty and the end of beauty cohabit in metaphor. Shakespeare’s sonnet, “That Time of Year” is an example of comparison without the use of “like” or “as”: THAT TIME OF YEAR That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see’st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by-and-by black night doth take away, Death’s second self that seals up all in rest. In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the deathbed whereon it must expire, Consumed by that which it was nourished by. This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long. Each of the sonnet’s three quatrains employs a single metaphor. In the first four lines, the poem’s speaker compares himself to a time of year—early winter. In lines 5-8, the speaker compares himself to a time of day—twilight, after sunset, night coming on fast. In the last quatrain, the speaker is a dying fire on a bed of ash. Imagine that Shakespeare had made a list of questions concerning his speaker and his predicament. His list might have begun like this: If I were a time of year, which season would I be? If I were a time of day, what hour would I be? If I were a form of fire, what kind of fire would I be? You can create such a list when you are contemplating a situation or individual you want to write about. Consider these questions: If this subject were a form of water, what form would it be? Would it be a peaceful lake or spring freshet? Ocean or trout stream? Tap water or well water, waterfall, puddle? If this subject were an animal, what animal would it be? A tiger or hare? A rooster or a jackass? If this subject were a flower, would it be joe-pye-weed or rose? Burgundy lily or snapdragon? If this subject were a form of shelter, would it be a tent, a mansion, cabin in the woods, penthouse suite, mobile home, or studio apartment? Continue by responding, as quickly as possible and in the same manner, to the rest of this list: Tree or fruit? Form of transportation? Kind of weather or climate? Article of clothing? Color of the rainbow? Historical period? Food or drink? Musical instrument? Art or sport? Geographical feature? Astronomical feature? Room in the house? Age? Kind of work? Depending upon the person or situation in your poem, you can vary this list to include books and movies, popular songs, kitchen appliances, comic book superheroes, vegetables, board games, cities…. Be careful to avoid familiar or overused phrases like “raging river” or “torrential rain;” don’t let your words congeal into dead metaphors. It’s important to finish with a list of at least twenty answers to your group of questions. Your responses—all of them concrete, specific nouns and adjectives—will provide the metaphors for you to work with. The longer your list, the more aspects of the subject your poem will reveal. The question, “What kind of animal would this subject be?” might suggest a physical resemblance: “John is a Florida panther.” Your answer to, “What form of water would this subject be?” might describe emotional depth with, “John is a still pond.” If your flower is a snapdragon, readers will be affected by the sound of the word as well as by its visual image. Although this method might seem best for a poem with an individual as its subject, John Davidson’s ballad, “Thirty Bob a Week,” uses a series of metaphors to describe a situation—the plight of the underpaid British workingman: It’s a naked child against a hungry wolf; It’s playing bowls upon a splitting wreck; It’s walking on a string across a gulf With millstones fore-and-aft about your neck. Davidson and Shakespeare suggest two ways of structuring a collection of metaphors into a poem. Davidson uses a simple list, rapidly making three metaphors in four lines. Shakespeare extends his into a fourteen-line sonnet by answering each question in gorgeous detail. Creating a narrative from your cache of words is a third strategy. I wouldn’t worry about how the narrative evolves—your Florida panther might yodel while rafting across a still pond—but it is important, in the first draft, to include every answer to the questions on your list. It’s fine if some of these look paradoxical: can that same John be a large wildcat and a placid lake? Perhaps, through these figures, you’ve discovered something about your subject you didn’t know before. FROM ROOM TO ROOM TWILIGHT: AFTER HAYING Jane Kenyon (1978) Jane Kenyon (1986) Here in this house, among photographs Yes, long shadow go out of your ancestors, their hymnbooks and from the bales; and yes, the soul old shoes… must part from the body: what else could it do? I move from room to room, a little dazed, like the fly. I watch it The men sprawl near the baler, bump against each window. Too tired to leave the field. They talk and smoke, I am clumsy here, thrusting and the tips of their cigarettes slabs of maple into the stove. blaze like small roses Out of my body for a while, in the night air. (It arrived weightless in space…. and settled among them before they were aware). Sometimes the wind against the clapboard The moon comes sounds like a car driving up to the house. to count the bales, and the dispossessed-- My people are not here, my mother Whip-poor-will, Whip-poor-will and father, my brother. I talk --sings from the dusty stubble. to the cats about weather. These things happen—the soul’s bliss “Blessed be the tie that binds…” and suffering are bound together we sing in the church down the road. Like the grasses…. And how does it go from there? The tie… The last, sweet exhalations the tether, the hose carrying of timothy and vetch oxygen to the astronaut, go out with the song of the bird; turning, turning outside the hatch, the ravaged field taking a look around. grows wet with dew.
THE LONG RIVER THE WHITE CLOSED DOOR Donald Hall (1963) Donald Hall (1990)
The musk ox smells I rowed past towns 1. in his long head in their black sleep When the day arrived I my boat coming. When to come here. I passed Pushed your gurney to where I feel him there, the northern grass A noiseless orderly intent, heavy, and cold mountains. Pressed for an elevator To drop you down and down the oars make wings The musk ox moves To the operating room. in the white night, when the boat stops and deep woods are close in hard thickets. Now The telephone rang too soon. on either side the wood is dark Returned to the hospital, where trees darken. with old pleasures. We heard the exact surgeon Present a schedule: In seven months, he said, WHITE CLOSED DOOR (cont’d.) 258, Emily Dickinson (1890)
Father, you would be dead. There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons-- 2. That oppresses, like the Heft Dying men dig a hole, as if they try Of cathedral tunes— The climate underground before they die. Heavenly Hurt, it gives us-- We can find no scar, 3. But internal difference, Dead before Christmas, you only Where the Meanings, are-- Returned once, in January: As I slept in a familiar None may teach it—Any-- Bedroom, wakeful, I heard your clear ‘Tis the Seal Despair-- Urgent voice call one syllable An imperial affliction Of my name. Wakened I lay still, Sent us of the Air-- Attent and terrified to stare At the dark bedroom’s white closed door. When it comes, the Landscape listens-- Listening, I heard the cold rain Shadows—hold their breath-- And wind but never you again. When it goes ‘tis like the Distance On the look of Death—
THE GREAT FIGURE THIS IS JUST TO SAY William Carlos Williams (1923) (WCW, 1935)
Among the rain tense I have eaten saving and lights unheeded the plums for breakfast I saw the figure 5 to gong clangs that were in in gold siren howls the icebox Forgive me on a red and wheels rumbling they were delicious firetruck through the dark city. and which so sweet moving you were probably and so cold
MOTHER TO SON Langston Hughes (1922)
Well, son, I’ll tell you: So boy, don’t you turn back. Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. Don’t you set down on the steps It’s had tacks in it, ‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard. And splinters, Don’t you fall now-- And boards torn up, for I’se still goin’, honey, And places with no carpet on the floor— I’se still climbin’, Bare. And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. But all the time I’se been a-climbin’ on, And reachin’ landin’s, And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’ in the dark Where there ain’t been no light.
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