
English 609 is a graduate course offered by Western Carolina Univesity
in Cullowhee, NC.
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| Day |
Date |
Reading, Topic |
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1-12-10 |
Four levels of poetry; the sensory level
exercises
Assignment:
- Descriptiive poem
- The Image
Reading for next week: Descriptive poems, list
poems
- Patricia Smith: Blood Dazzler
- Turco, Sensory level 55-68
- Oxford: "In a station of the Metro,"
302, "Roosters" 547, "At the
Fishhouses" 553;"Portrait of a Lady"
278, "By the Road to the Contagious Hospital,"
281, "Skunk Hour" 632, "Birches,"
223, "Fire on the Hills" 321, "Root
Cellar" 530, "Those Winter Sundays,"
581, "The Beautiful Changes," 668,
"Lying in a Hammock," 840, "Above
Pate Valley," 883
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1-19-10 |
Four levels of poetry; ideational
level (myth)
Assignment: Myth/ persona poems
Reading for next week:
- Turco, 61-74
- Oxford: H.D. "Helen," 316; Eliot,
"Journey of the Magi," 368, Rukeyser,
"myth" 588, Moss, "King Midas,"
677, Levertov, "Abel's Bride," 688,
Kinnell, "St. Francis and the Sow,"
830; Hollander, "Adam's Task," 860;
Strand "Orpheus Alone" 906; Pinksy,
"From the Childhood of Jesus," 947
- Collier
"Argos", Tennyson,
"Ulysses"; Yeats
"Leda"; Wright,
"Saint Judas"; Atwood
"Siren's song", Stevens, "The
World as Meditation"
- Look up the Myths:
Homework: write a poem describing an collections of old objects, a old photograph you have some connection to but don't know well, or a landscape (or choose another topic) |
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1-26-10 |
Turco topic:
- Four levels of poetry: ideational
level (voice)
- Four levels of poetry; typographical
level (the line);
Reading for next week: syllabics and stress prosody
Reading for next week (voice, myth, and persona poems)
Homework: Try a "myth" poem or poem from the point of view of a fictional or historical character |
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2-2-10 |
Four levels of poetry: sonic level (accentual prosody and syllabic prosody)
Workshopping (use this prompt):
Reading for next week: repeating forms
Turco: 234-239
Online: Sestinas
Online: Other repeating forms
Homework: Write 2 poems:
- a directive
- a poem using EITHER syllabic prosody or stress prosody
We need four volunteers for workshopping |
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2-9-10 |
Workshopping
Suggestions for finding end-words
- Random words from dictionary
- Finding six words from the same context (e.g.
X files, video games, cartoons, painting, opera,
menus, bible, advertising, car repair manual,
cookbook, food group, etc.)
- six cognates (for example, the words helmet,
hell, hall, hull, hole, cover, colon, color,
conceal, apocalypse, eucalyptus, holster, occult,
cellar, housing, and supercilious all come from the same Indo-European root--see American
Heritage Dictionary for etymologies)
Reading for next week:24-38; iambic pentameter poems
Online "St
Crispin's Day" speek by Shakespeare;
Browning, "The
Bishop Orders his Tomb"
Textbook: Frost, "Mending Wall" 212,
"Home Burial" 219, "Birches,"
223, "For Once, Then, Something" 228;
"Idea of Order at Key West," Wilbur,
Stafford "Traveling: 618; "Lying"
674; Merrill "Charles on Fire" 763;
Wagoner "Dead Letter from Out of Town"
801; Howard "Like Most Revelations"
863; Rich "Living in Sin" 868
Irregular blank verse: Matthews "Inspiration"
980; Kees "Round" 616;
Homework: Write a sestina |
| M |
2-16 |
Workshopping
Ideational level: Other arts
Reading for next week: Ekphrasis
Homework: Required Assignment: Blank
verse (at least 20 lines) |
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2/23/10 |
ADVISING DAY -- NO CLASS |
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3-2-10 |
Discussion: Poems about Art
Workshop
Readings for Next Week
Procedural poems:
- Language poetry and "method" poetry
- Found Poetry
- Activities:
Homework: Write a poem about art (or choose your own topic) |
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3-9-10 |
Billy Collins, "Workshop,"
954
Discussion: Procedural poems
Activities:
Workshopping
For next week: Rhyming forms and the Ghazal
- More in the way of explanation
- Ghazal
net (online site of ghazals in English)
- Another
site with ghazals; more explanations
- Sonic level: kinds of rhyme
- Typographical level: Stanzas, strophes, verse
paragraphs
Reading for next week (these poems are either
ghazals or they use rhyme in ways that disguise
it or transform it)
- Turco: 39-46
- Hiding the Rhyme (My
exercise)
- Oxford: Auden, Musee des beaux arts (again)
262 and ; Hecht, More Light 298; Kumin, "Noted
in the NY Times"; Textbook: Edward Taylor, To a Spider 7; Longellow,
Lost Youth 45; Frost, To Earthward 229; Marianne
Moore, any, 339-341; Millay, Renezvous 390;
Hughes, Weary Blues, 468, Harlem 472; Auden
Shield of Achilles 519; Bishop The Shampoo 555;Swenson,
The Wave and the Dune 601;Wilbur, The Beautiful
Changes 668;
- Online: Clark, Riverside
Ghazal; Herbert, Man and The
Collar; Owen, Futility;
Wilbur, Advice
to a prophet (again) and Cottage
Street 1953; Yeats, Cuchulain
Comforted; Hopkins, Bugler's First
Communion, To
What Serves Mortal Beau; Yeats "Wild
Swans at Coole"; Herbert, Baptism, Hardy, At
Castle Boterel; Donne, Valediction:
of Weeping; Bogan, Medusa
Homework: Write a procedural or "Found" poem (or choose your own topic) |
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3-16-10 |
Discussion: tapping
the unconscious and Bly's Leaping Poetry
Turco discussion: Sonic level (meter)
Workshopping
Reading for next week:
Sapphics
Homework: write a ghazal or a poem that borrows a form (make sure that it rhymes and that you observe some of the rules of hiding rhyme). |
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3-22-10 |
Lit Festival--attend at least two events in place of class. |
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3-30-10 |
Spring Break -- No Class |
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4-6-10 |
Ideational level: elegies and animals
Ideational level: Nature writing
Workshopping
Readings for Next Week:
- Turco: 148-149
- Oxford: Dickinson, 328 (p 169); Frost, Oven
Bird 225, Design 233;Jeffers, Fire on the Hills
321; Cummings "my father moved..."
399; Bishop Roosters 547; Merwin, For the anniversary
834; Dickey, The Heaven of Animals ; Gioia,
Planting...p.406; O'Hara, The Day Lady Died,
795; James Wright, A Blessing 841; Kees "For
My Daughter" 614; Tate, The Lost Pilot
999; Ryan, Home to Roost 1024
- Online: Broughton, Song
for Sampson, Levine, Animals
are passing from our lives; Hardy, Last
Words to a Dumb Friend and At
Castle Boterel; Bishop, North
Haven, Millay from To
Elinor Wylie; Roethke, Elegy
for Jane; Justice, Psalm
& Lament; Smart, Jubilate
Agno ; Bishop, North
Haven; Justice Psalm
and Lament; Dickey, Dusk
of Horses
- A small selection of Nature Poems: Hopkins, Windhover;
Snyder, Above
Pate Valley; Wendell Berry ( an interview);
Mary Oliver Wild Geese; etc.
homework: Write a sapphic (or choose another topic) |
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4-13-10 |
Workshopping
Sonic level: pantoums and villanelles (read for next week)
- Textbook: Auden, But I can't 511;
- Pantoums (a
definition)
- Funkhouser, First
Pantoum of Summer
- Cramer, Everyone
who Left Us
- Kizer, Parent's
Pantoum
- Fagan, Saloon
Pantoum
- Cathy Barber, The
Vigil
- Justice, Pantoum
of the Great Depression
- Stewart, Punk
Pantoum (note the white text--copy and
paste into Word, then print it)
- Jendi Reiter, Pantoum (scroll down to it)
- Feinfeld, The
Pantoum (about pantoums...)
- Verlaine, Pantoum
Negligé (for those who can read
French)
- Stallings, Another Lullaby for Insomniacs
- Villanelle (a
definition with examples including Thomas,
Do Not Go Gentle...
- Another definition with most
of the classic examples including Bishop,
Art of Losing; Roethke, I Wake to Sleep
- E.A. Robinson, The
House on the Hill
- Wilde, Theocritus:
A Villanelle
- Auden, Villanelle
- Justice, Villanelle
at Sundown
- Disch, Rapist's
Villanelle (scroll down) and Entropic
Villanelle (scroll down)
- Williams, Villanelle
for the Cows
- Kumin, The
Nuns of Childhood
- Cramer, Villanelle
After Burial
- de los Santos, For a Stillborn
- Terza Rima and Terzanelle
- Terza Rima Examples:
Homework: Write an elegy or nature poem (or choose another topic) |
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4-20-09 |
Workshopping
sonic level: sonnets and fourteeners, including nonce sonnets
HomeworK: Write one of the following: pantoum, villanelle, terzanelle, triolet, or sonnet (required if you didn't write a sapphic) or choose another topic |
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4-27-09 |
Workshopping
Ideational level: ars poetica;
literature and language
William Matthews Inspiration 980
By next Tuesday, send or bring a portfolio with a preface or ars poetica (poem about poetry) at the beginning. |
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5-4 |
Portfolio due |
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