COURSE SCHEDULE
WEEK 1
WORKSHOP TOPIC: DOES POETRY MATTER?
A critical and historical introduction to poetry as a social discourse, and a reflective consideration of your role as poet, citizen, and creative arts practitioner.
MICRO-WRITING EXERCISE
The tanka, the shallot, and tactile emotions.
POETS/POEMS
· Kathryn Gallagher, ‘Poem for a shallot’
· George Oppen, ‘Five Poems about Poetry’
· Camille Guthrie, ‘Beautiful Poetry’
· John Brehm, ‘At the Poetry Reading’
RECOMMENDED CRITICAL & THEORETICAL READING
· Horace, ‘Ars Poetica’ [The Art of Poetry’]
· Johanna Shapiro & Lloyd Rucker ‘Can Poetry Make Better Doctors?
· Dana Gioia, ‘Can Poetry Matter?’
ASSIGNMENT
Write two free-verse poems using the following themes as prompts:
· poets as citizens
· the value of poetry to a particular community
· coming-of-age as a poet
· the life poetic
· what poetry means to you
· student life
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE/POETRY CHALLENGE
Recite a poem to someone/something you care about, or love—human, object or animal! Reading and reciting poems is a time-honored tradition. Use holidays or birthdays as an opportunity to celebrate with a poem. Consider adding a poetry reading to your evening meal, or breakfast. John Keats for example believed reading love poems created 'a burning forehead' and 'parched tongue'.
DUE
For workshopping this week, please bring along an example of your own poetic writing, or your favourite poem written by someone else. This will not be part of your formal assessment, but meant as an introductory exercise.
Please come to class next week with the draft of the your poems from the above assignment, a suitable amount of copies for distribution, and be prepared to workshop your own and other poet’s work.
WEEK 2
WORKSHOP TOPIC: THE PANTOUM
A pantoum is a poetic form which banks on its refrains within a series of interwoven quatrains to form a musical pattern. The impact of such echoing is melodious and touching, and can make an important topic either comic or haunting. Often referred to as being a spiritual form, the ‘pantun’ is a Malaysian poetic form that was introduced to the West by French writer and poet, Victor Hugo (1802-1885).
MICRO-WRITING EXERCISE
Creating original figurative language/musicality in poetic form.
POETS/POEMS
· Peter Porter, ‘The Pantoum of the Opera’
· Noyes Leslie Harrison, ‘Pantoum for a walk in the woods’
· Maria Nazos, ‘Cape Cod Pantoum’
RECOMMENDED CRITICAL & THEORETICAL READING
· Willard Spiegelman, ‘The State of American Poetry’
· Annie Finch, ‘Female Tradition as Feminist Innovation’
ASSIGNMENT
Write two poems in a traditional poetic form that appeals to you. In one poem, attempt to strictly adhere to the rules of the form. In your second poem, aim to extend the boundaries of that form in an innovative manner (for example, the imperfect pantoum).
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE/POETRY CHALLENGE
Start a commonplace book. In a small notebook, record poems or fragments of poems that you come across in your reading. As you add to your own commonplace book, you will be drawing a map of your life as a reader and thinker, creating a valuable portrait of your memory and time. Meet and share and recite excerpts.
DUE
Poems 1 & 2 due for workshopping.
WEEK 3
WORKSHOP TOPIC: THE EPISTOLARY POEM
From the Latin ‘epistle’ meaning a letter epistolary poems have a long history. Horace wrote famous verse epistles and the form continues to be used today. Epistolary poetry, since its classical beginnings, has typically addressed people who are loved but these subjects have often in some way mistreated, neglected, or abandoned the person (poet) writing about them. As such they are a classical practice that has maintained its exciting poetic possibilities in contemporary times.
MICRO-WRITING EXERCISE
Writing a prose-poem letter from an email/the art of ine breaks
POETS/POEMS
· Ovid, ‘Letters of Heroines’ (there are 15 in this cycle)
· Leonard Cohen, ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’
· Sir Thomas Wyatt, ‘They Flee From Me, That Sometime Did Me Seek’
· Sylvia Plath, ‘Daddy’
RECOMMENDED CRITICAL & THEORETICAL READING
· Hannah Brooks-Motl, ‘Learning the Epistolary Poem’
ASSIGNMENT
Write two epistolary poems, addressed to different subjects. One subject should be someone you know, and for the other select a historical figure or fictional character. You may instead choose to write to a group.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE/POETRY CHALLENGE
Watch a poetry movie. Suggestions include ‘Dead Poets Society’, ‘Sylvia’, and ‘Bright Star’, but there are many more. Compile a list! Gather some friends, watch your poetry-related movie, and discuss and recite some of the poet's work after the film.
DUE
Poems 3 & 4 due for workshopping.
WEEK 4
WORKSHOP TOPIC: LOVE POETRY & THE CONFESSIONAL SELF
Addressed specifically to another being, a love poem is by nature a dramatic piece of writing, spoken by one character to another. This week’s workshop theme ‘love and the confessional self’ concentrates on ways of creating dramatic style within free verse form. Poets are encouraged to develop a keener relationship to textual reflection of the self through the thematic prism of love.
MICRO-WRITING EXERCISE
The autobiographical impulse/imagery & found language/the list poem
POETS/POEMS
· John Keats, ‘Bright Star’
· Annie Finch, ‘Love Poem #2’
· Francesca Beard, ‘The Poem That Was really a List’
RECOMMENDED CRITICAL & THEORETICAL READING
· Beth Ann Fennelly, ‘Everything but: Creating tension in love poetry.’
· Jacob Aron, ‘Valentine’s Love Poetry Brings a Hot Rush of Blood to the Cheeks’
ASSIGNMENT
Write two love poems. One of those poems should experiment with the form of the list poem.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE/POETRY CHALLENGE
Write a letter to a poet. Let the poets who you are reading know that you appreciate their work by sending them a letter. The Poet Who Forgot, for example, uncovers the unique personal friendship that developed between AD Hope and Catherine Cole through the creative dynamics of their mentor-apprentice relationship. AD (Alec) Hope was a world-renowned poet when Catherine Cole, a young undergraduate student of Australian Literature sent a polite letter ‘from student to poet’ asking for a meeting. That bold step sparked a lively correspondence between the two that continued for close to two decades, from 1983 until Hope’s death in 2000.
DUE
Poems 5 & 6 due for workshopping.
WEEK 5
WORKSHOP TOPIC: READING AND WRITING ELEGIES
The elegy began as an ancient Greek metrical form and is traditionally written in response to death. It is different from the epitaph (which is very brief), and the ode (which solely exalts) and the eulogy (mostly written in formal prose). The elements of the traditional elegy mirror three stages of loss: the lament (where the speaker expresses grief and sorrow); praise (expressing admiration of the often idealized dead); and finally consolation (expression of solace). This class considers consolation in twentieth-and twenty-first-century elegiac writing: can you make this work for you as a poet?
MICRO-WRITING EXERCISE
The body in mourning/concrete imagery. Draw a picture of yourself as a mourning subject, located in place and time. If you were piece of furniture, what would it be?
POETS/POEMS
· Theodore Roethke, ‘Elegy for Jane’
· Hayden Carruth, ‘Ray’
· Patti Smith, ‘Elegie’
RECOMMENDED CRITICAL & THEORETICAL READING
· Carrie Jaurès Noland, ‘Rimbaud and Patti Smith: Style as Social Deviance’.
ASSIGNMENT
Write an elegy obedient to the traditional stanzaic formula of lament, praise and consolation. As this is our last workshop, you may email this poem for commentary. You may or may not wish to include it in your final portfolio for assessment, but please be mindful that it will not have been subject to the benefits of the complete workshop process.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE/POETRY CHALLENGE
Celebrate poetry with ‘Poem in a pocket’. The idea is simple: select a poem you love, carry it with you, then share it with co-workers, family, and friends. Better still, attend a live poetry reading, and share your pocket poetry with other poetry devotees the audience.
DUE
Poems 7 & 8 due for workshopping.