Overview

What is Poetry?

During this first week we will consider the question "What is poetry?" by discussing various types of poetry with which we are (or are not) familiar, our reactions to them and their place in a social context. From your textbook and handouts read the following selections: Yeats, Kinnell, Homer, Browning, Olds, Owen.

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Cleanth Brooks, Robert Penn Warren & Robert Graves from Understanding Poetry: An Anthology.

Week 1

	Class begins.
	Review syllabus for class.
	Discuss Journals. Begin journal.
	Interview partner.
	Write a short introduction about your partner to be shared in class--be brave write a lyric, a narrative, a dramatic narrative perhaps -- Email introduction to instructor.
	First journal entry due, typed by next Monday at the beginning of class.
	Write Seminar 1. Readings -- 737 - 787 (preparation for Sem. 2)

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The Language of Poetry

Poetic language often differs from prose or even colloquial language. We will discuss the various aspects of poetic language, how poets emply them and their ultimate affect upon the reader. From your textbook and handouts read the following selections: Williams, Carroll, Cummings, Wordsworth, Marvell, Hall.

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Emily Dickinson

Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
"Baseball Canto"

George Hartley, "Textual Politics and the Language Poets"

Week 2  The Language of Poetry

	Read Giving and Receiving Feedback
	Complete Feedback Exercise
	TJE#1  -- due Monday
	Begin Seminar 1 due the 17th -- Wed. for feedback
	Read Elements of Poetry
	Explicate Roethke, Rich, and Hayden
	Read Chapter 2
	Computer Day Friday

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The Meaning of Poetry

"A poem does not mean, it simply is." True, but it does mean something to each one of us. We will examine how poems create meanng, and oftentimes, an ambivalence of meaning, thrugh a variety of methods. From your textbook and handouts read the following selections: Blake, Frost, Keats, Plath, Hopkins, Shakespeare.

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Gertrude Stein, "Readings"

John Ashbery, "What Is Poetry?"

Jerome McGann, "Contemporary Poetry, Alternate Routes"

Week 3   Words

	Read 790-854
	Begin thinking about Research 1
	TJE#2
	Images - Chapter 5
	Library Day, Tuesday.
	Seminar 1 Due -- Wed. for peer edit --remember to include Post Script
	Peer edit sheet
	Thursday, Seminar with groups 1 and 2
	Poetry Day at Library--11:30
	Computer Day Friday,
	Seminar with groups 3 and 4
	Begin Seminar 2 Click here for group assignments

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 Imagery

The language of poetry is a language of images. Just how do these images stimulate our senses and heighten our response to poetry? From your textbook and handouts read the following selections: Pound, Roethke, Hopkins, Coleridge, Yeats, Stevens, Coleman.

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Wallace Stevens

Week 4  Figures of Speech

	855-878
	Monday TJE#3 due
	Metaphors
	Seminar 2 due Wed. for peer edit
	Peer edit sheet
	Check to see leaders of seminar groups this week
	Thursday, Seminar with groups 1 and 3 Friday,
	Seminar with groups 2 and 4
	Writing about literature help: http://www.wwnorton.com/introlit/ write_evidence.htm
	Begin Research 1
	Computer Day

Week 4  Research 1 Words

	Monday:  Seminar 1 draft due on  for peer edit -- Peer edit sheet
	Discuss Research 1  discuss assignment
	Tuesday Library prep. Meet in Foyer
	TJE#3 due on Monday
	Wed: Discuss Seminar 2 expectations
	Thursday, Seminar 1 discussion --
	remember to include Post Script -- you must have typed paper to attend
	Computer Day Friday,

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Figures of Speech

Remembering our previous discussions concerning language and meaning, we will examine the various figures of speech which assist the poet in developing a specific poem. From your textbook and handouts read the following selections: Shakespeare, Plath, Momaday, Levertov, Burns, Ashberry.

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Muriel Rukeyser, "Metaphor to Action"

Jack Kerouac, "trying to think of a rule..."

Week 5   Figures of Speech (Fall 2003)

	Monday TJE#4 due --Library day
	Tues: Peer edit, Research 1
	Wed. Lecture Metaphors
	Thursday, Seminar Day -- Research 1
	Writing about literature help: http://www.wwnorton.com/introlit/ write_evidence.htm
	Computer Day Begin Seminar 2

Week 5    Song versus Poetry  

	879 -996
	Monday TJE#4 due
	Discuss Form
	Wed. Research 1 due for peer edit and discussion --
	Peer edit sheet --final draft due on Tuesday
	Wednesday Short Quiz
	Students choose one of the poets from selections --give me a list of your top 3 prioritized on Thursday
	Thursday: Whole class seminar on research 1.
	Friday: No class.
	Begin  Seminar 3
	Computer Day

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The Form of Poetry

Every poem follows a pattern and has a form. A poem may be patterned arund a central theme providing an essential form. Or a poem might utilize rhyme scheme, meter, stanza length, and graphic representation on the page as elements of formal construction. We will analyze these various formal elements paying attention to the particular established forms -- sonnet, etc. -- and how form influences content. From your textbook and handouts read the following selections: Donne, Petrarch, Bishop, Whitman, Herbert, Dickinson.

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Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Two Sonnets in Memory"

John Donne, "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"

Genevieve Taggard, "Interior"

Week 6    

	Research 1 due on Tuesday
	Format for Research paper
	Myth and Narrative--Chapter 13
	TJE#5 due
	Set up for Research #2
	Poet Teams
	Poet Project Presentations
	Timelines
	Begin Poet Work Seminar 3 due
	Wed. for peer edit
	Peer edit sheet Thursday,
	Seminar with groups 4 and 3 Friday,
	Seminar with groups 2 and 1
	Begin Seminar 4

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 Song, Sound & Rhythm

A poem's origin lies in song. We will examine the musicality of a poem, and consequently, the emphasis it places upon voice. From your textbook and handouts read the following selections: Run DMC, Robinson, Simon, Poe, Lennon & McCartney, Housman.

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"William Carlos Williams, "A poem is a small...machine"

Allen Tate, "Narcissus as Narcissus

Laurie Anderson, "From the Air"

John Cage, "Writing through Howl"

Week 7    Symbols   

	Read 997 -1064
	TJE#6
	30 Minute Non-stop due -attach timeline sheet to the inside of a folder to start organizing this info
	Teams have Poet Discussions on Tuesday--answer questions, assign Litweb--meet in library
	Seminar 4 due Wed. for peer edit
	Peer edit sheet Thursday, Seminar with groups 4 and 2 Friday, Seminar with groups 3 and 1 Begin Seminar 5

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Symbolism

Symbolism and Myth are essential aspects of all art forms. In poetry they are of particular interest to the literary critic. We will analyze their significiacne and spend time discussing Formalist Criticism of poetry. From your textbook and handouts read the following selections: Baudelaire, Pound, Eliot, Yeats, Brooks, Frye.

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Hypertext Poetry

Allen Ginsberg, "America"

Louis Zukofsky, "[he men in the kitchens]"

Ruth Lechlitner, "Lines for an Abortionist's Office"  

	1082-1157
	Tuesday--Groups have Poet Discussions -- library
	TJE due
	MLA Discussion
	Wed. -- Seminar 3 due for feedback
	Summary of 2 resources
	Preliminary research of litweb

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Voice & Identity

Just as poets speak poetry, poetry speaks the poet. A poem offers us insight into the voice and identity of a specific poet. In discussing voice and identity we will also examine Biographcal and Feminist criticism. From your textbook and handouts read the following selections: Plath, Hughes, Justice, Lorca, Olds, Fiedler, Showalter.

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Week 9       (11/10-14)

	M: Groups have Poet Discussions -- library
	Summary of 2 resources
	Final  -- turn in completed journal
	W:  Work day MLA Handouts: traditional sources electronic sources embedding sources
	R: Literary Links for Litweb due
	R: Scansion Quiz

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How the World Reads Poetry

We will continue our discussion concerning how we read poetry. As well, we will critically examine the way hypertext functions within the study of poetry. From your textbook and handouts read the following selections: Mallarme, Eliot.

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George Oppen, "The Prudery Of Frigidaire"

Week 10 (11/17-21)

	M: Groups have Poet Discussions -- library
	T: Draft of Research 2 for FB
	R&F--teams work on presentation--no class.

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How Poetry Reads the World

Just a a shell impresses itself upon sand, so too, does the world impress itself upon the poem. How does the poem serve as an artifact of the time in which it was written? In answering this question we will pay special attention to Historical Criticism of poetry. From your textbook and handouts read the following selections: Hughes, Tennyson, Owen, Reed, Sassoon, Whitman, Lukacs.

Hypertext Poetics

We will continue our discussion of the act of reading the poem and conclude our course by reviewing the interactive process which poetry and hypertext demand.

n light of previous discussion, we will examine the aspects of conversation, collaboration and interactivity and their special place in the poem. While engaging this topic we will pay close attention to Reader-Response Criticism of poetry. From your textbook and handouts read the following selections: Fish, Scholes. Bidart. Ai.

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Week 11    (11/24-25)

	M: 2nd draft of Research paper due to Jan for comments Wrap Up Research 2 due
	Litweb due
	Sign up for conferences

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"And this is how the world ends,
not with a bang, but a whimper."

(Who wrote this in what poem, what year?)