Our final exam period will be held at 9800 Seymour Street from 1:30 until 3:30 or so.  I have asked Jack Leax and Linda Mills-Woolsey to join us. All work is due on or before that meeting. This includes both poems you have posted and submission of the written report on your contemporary poet.  In addition, I would like you to come to that post-lunch gathering with a written statement, suitable for submission, about how you see poetry. That is, write about your experience reading, writing and discussing poetry this semester; write about the idea of being a poet, of practicing poetry during these months.

Bring your statement with you to the gathering.  I will not ask you to read it but I will ask you to contribute your thoughts.

That is a conversation Jack and Linda are being asked to join.

You might want to revisit your January description of poetry as a launching pad for your discussion.  There is no specified length. I should think, however, that 500 words would be a bare minimum and 5000 words would be more than necessary. 

My house is easy to get to: cross the little bridge behind Lambein and turn right when you get to the road. My house is the second on the right, the red house just to the right of where the road splits. If you go up (left at the split) you will arrive at the nursing home. Don’t. Stay right.

See you there.

JAZ

Writing YOU poems

Write a series of poems [let’s aim for 5] using “you” as a primary factor. The poems should take a variety of approaches toward the “you.”  Begin by identifying people or groups you might like to address.  Add to this list groups (broadly or narrowly defined) that you (or the narrator of a poem) might identify with, or that you might not be part of. Let the “you” poems in our book shed light on the possibilities.  Consider, for example, “you” as your mother whom you address through a specific small memory; but also consider “you” as mothers or “you” as young mothers or “you” as an aging mother.

Once you have made your list, allow the poem to make itself; follow out whatever has been initiated.

Order and Dates for Oral Reports

April 9      Josh Barnes         Dylan Thomas

April 14    Kevin B                LiYoung Lee
                  Victoria                Adrienne Rich

April 16     Sohpia                  P.K. Page
                   Courtney              Phillip Larkin

April 21      Katie                 Mary Oliver
                    Erin                  Ai

April 23      Shelby              Scott Cairns
                    Julianna            Ada Limon
                    Lilly                 Naomi Shihab Nye

April 28      Laurissa            Denise Levertov
                   Jacob                 Jack Clemo

Report Specs

Report on Contemporary Poets, written and oral

To Do:

Stage one is to pick a poet whose work and biography are available.  I suggest creating a short list, perhaps even a prioritized short list, from which your poet can be selected.

The poet needs to have published the bulk of his/her work in English since 1960. One place to start your research on this poet is the following site:   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/

You have the freedom to shape your reports in a number of ways, but you should have read enough of the poet’s published work to be able to describe its characteristics, concerns, and forms.  The report will be given both orally and in writing. The written report will be 1000-1500 words, exclusive of reprinted poems and a works read list, and the oral report should take you 20-30 minutes of class time. We will schedule these for after Easter break.

To Avoid:

Do not pick someone with whom you are already intimately familiar, especially someone on whom you have done research for another class, whether it be a high school class taken last century or Dr. Woolsey’s contemporary poets class taken last fall.  Do not choose Rod McKuen or Shel Silverstein or Helen Steiner Rice. [There may be other “forbidden” poets, so check your choices with me.]

The report should include the following:

a.       A descriptive overview (kinds of poems, themes and interests, techniques and devices)

b.      A closer look at one or two poems, at stanzas, and/or at a series of significant lines

c.       Any biographical information that is relevant to the poetry. Life facts for their own sake may not be helpful for this assignment.

d.      The report may include criticism if relevant criticism is available. It may also include relevant information about the “school” or movement the poet has been associated with. The important issue is how you interact with the poetry, not hot now well you do library work.

The oral report (20-30 minutes) is designed to introduce your classmates to your poet, to add a contemporary poet to the list of poets or books they will want to read. You may incorporate video feeds of your poet reading or discussing his/her work, or of others commenting on the poet’s work.  You may also create class or group exercises with selected poems in an effort to help us dig into your poet’s work. Your objectives for the oral report should be clarity, focus, and purpose rather than exhaustiveness.

The written report (1500 words, max; 1000 words, minimum) is a companion to the oral report. It is addressed to the senior poet specifically. Without video and without exercises, you are to provide this reader with a discussion of your poet through exposition, analysis, close reading (perhaps), and focused biography. Document your sources, please, using MLA Style criteria, with a “Works Read” list.

The written report is due within a week of the oral report, although it may be turned in early.

Note:  One way to think of the oral report is that you are teaching a class in which you are providing a means for the others to connect with this poet and the poetry.  The written report is where you demonstrate your engagement with the poet/work specifically to the senior poet. The material you cover may be identical, but your specific audience and what that audience needs to know differs.

Formal poem: Write a villanelle

Please write a villanelle, perhaps as one of your Easter poems.

A villanelle is a 19 line poem consisting of five 3-line stanzas (triplets) and a final, 4-line stanza (quatrain). The lines are iambic pentameter. Not only is the rhythm regular and the rhyme scheme tight, but the poem uses line repetition, not only limiting the rhyme scheme thereby but also creating an internal, formal set of references. Despite its tight appearance, a well-turned villanelle "progresses" from beginning to end so that nuances of the central ideas are examined; we might also describe this as "building" upon the ideas of the lines in the first stanza. A well-known example of this progression is Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle."

Please refer to Patterns of Poetry for the precise order of repeated lines and for the rhyme patterns.

There are various ways to begin writing a villanelle. One that I suggest for exercise and practice is this: write three lines of iambic pentameter.  Two of the first three lines must rhyme; these will be lines one and three.  The other line ends with its own sound; it will be line two. The lines you choose also need to posit interesting ideas; if they are general or vague or bland, you will tire of them quickly. But choose three lines that are interesting as starting points. Let the end of the poem come when you get to it.

You will quickly discover that the initial rhyme words you choose are important.  If there are few rhyming alternatives, you will quickly feel locked in and the poem will simply appear rhyme-driven. What I am suggesting is that once you have written these lines, you may want to create a list of rhyming words to help you know what your options ar.

Assignment for Descriptive Paragraphs due Feb 3

Working with descriptive paragraphs raises the immediate possibility of rendering writing that works as prose into poetry, which is another use of language.  The questions the poet must ask at this point begins with this one: how can I change this descriptive language into a poetic thing, a poetic-art object? 

To do this, the poet must ask other questions of her material:  What are the values I am working with?  [Think of "values" in terms of language and form, please, not in terms of morals or life principles. Being able to explain these "values" completely is not expected.] What can I keep and what can I eliminate?

For class on Tuesday, February 3), reconstruct your descriptive paragraph as a poem.  Follow the directions below:

1.       Break you description into lines. Figure out your reasons (for line breaks) as you go. [These don't have to be noted anywhere, but you may be asked to give reasons.]

2.       If necessary, break the lines into stanzas.  If you use stanzas, try to achieve visual and/or musical uniformity so that the stanzas look and feel as if they are "obeying" the same directions or impulses.

3.       Rearrange lines or images or details if it aids the poem.

4.       Cut words ( a lot of words, perhaps)

5.       Add words if those words add concrete information.  You may want to replace vague, abstract, general, inexact words with more specific alternatives. The objective of adding is to aid concrete description rather than to make the poem longer.

6.       You are not required, nor necessarily expected to retain correct grammar.  Notwithstanding, your poem should achieve "sentence sense."

7.   Eliminate "I" references unless I has a necessary, active role in the description.  If "I" is primarily a static talker (i.e., simply a "voice"), try to eliminate the "I" references.    

8.  Do not create expository meaning for your poem.  Allow the poem to develop and carry descriptive meaning.

Begin by writing and posting a statement about poetry.  Keep it relatively brief. Do not apologize, please, for any short comings you feel you have.  Do not brag.