English 609: Gradute Poetry Writing

English 609 is a graduate course offered by Western Carolina Univesity in Cullowhee, NC.

Day	Date	Reading, Topic
T	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
	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: Encyclopedia Mythica Mythweb searchable encyclopedia Perseus project Greek Mythology Link SurLaLune Annotated Fairy Tales site Grimm's Fairy Tales Folk and Fairy Tales resource page Infancy Gospel of Thomas (for Pinsky poem) 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)
	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 Turco: 9-24 Beowulf, Original (just look at it) and an excerpt from Heaney's verse transation Pound, "Seafarer," Wilbur, "Junk""The Writer" Moore, "The Fish" 324; Thomas, "Fern Hill"; Hardy's The Temporary the All Reading for next week (voice, myth, and persona poems) Turco: 73-77 Online: Homer, Odyssey Excerpt; Frost, Directive; Ash, Road to Ogalma; Wilbur, Advice to a Prophet; Merwin, For A Comng Extinction; Denis Johnson, The White Fires of Venus; Hardy, Channel Firing; Donne, Holy Sonnet Essay: Frost's Prime Directive Homework: Try a "myth" poem or poem from the point of view of a fictional or historical character
	2-2-10	Four levels of poetry: sonic level (accentual prosody and syllabic prosody) Workshopping (use this prompt): Terry Michelsen Suzanne Raether Rachel Harmon Margaret Curns Reading for next week: repeating forms Turco: 234-239 Online: Sestinas Bishop, Sestina Cummins, from The Whole Truth (sestina sequence) Great essay by Cummins on sestinas Angelica Waters, Child Reading A bunch of recent sestinas by contempary authors Another collection Online: Other repeating forms Canzonetta Triolet Quatern Rondel Homework: Write 2 poems: a directive a poem using EITHER syllabic prosody or stress prosody We need four volunteers for workshopping
	2-9-10	Workshopping Stephanie McCall Suzanne Raether Terry Michelsen Maleah Pusz 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 Suzanne Raether Cindy Goode Margaret Curns Rachel Harmon Ideational level: Other arts Reading for next week: Ekphrasis Poets.org: Poets confronting art Keats, "Ode on a grecian urn"; Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium" (see Metropolitan Museum exhibit on Byzantine art); Crane, "Chaplineque"; Hughes "Dream Boogie" ; Auden "Musee des Beaux Arts" (also inspired by other work in the same wing); Roethke, "My Papa's Waltz" ; O'Hara, "The Day Lady Died" Online: Stevens, "The Paltry Nude" (inspired by Botticelli's Birth of Venus) & "Thirteen ways" (inspired by Cubism); Williams "The Dance" The Poets speak of art (online project at Emory University) (link updated) Homework: Required Assignment: Blank verse (at least 20 lines)
	2/23/10	ADVISING DAY -- NO CLASS
	3-2-10	Discussion: Poems about Art Workshop Suzanne Raether Cindy Goode Margaret Curns Rachel Harmon Stephanie McCall Readings for Next Week Procedural poems: Language poetry and "method" poetry Explanation, history and an essay on its political nature Online examples: John Cage's Indeterminacy (click on "stories" and then hit reload to see new poems); Alice Fulton's A little Hear to Heart with the Horizon; Leslie Scalapino's Tango Found Poetry Explanation Somebody's Found Poetry assignment (if you need a method) Examples: The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld; Adams, Dense Smoke...; Annie Dillard, selections from Morning Like This Activities: Rhythmic Creations An interactive poetry site (contains mad libs, magnetic poetry, etc) Mad Libs Poetry (here's my example) Half poem (from a poem by Ralph Angel) 20 Poetry Projects Homework: Write a poem about art (or choose your own topic)
	3-9-10	Billy Collins, "Workshop," 954 Discussion: Procedural poems Activities: Rhythmic Creations An interactive poetry site (contains mad libs, magnetic poetry, etc) Mad Libs Poetry (here's my example) Half poem (from a poem by Ralph Angel) 20 Poetry Projects 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)
	3-16-10	Discussion: tapping the unconscious and Bly's Leaping Poetry Turco discussion: Sonic level (meter) Workshopping Harmon Michelsen Pusz Raether Reading for next week: Sapphics Turco: 225-226 Explanation: by Betty Ann Whitley A Sapphics page by Alberto Rios at Arizona State (contains some examples) Introduction to Greek Meter (difficult, but interesting) Sappho 's Hymn to Aphrodite Originial greek --just in case; followed by a bunch of poet's translations translation by Elizabeth Vandiver; Online: Swinburne, Sapphics; Hardy, The Temporary, The All; Lampman, Alycone; Scott, Sapphics for Sappho; Watts, Day of Judgement: An Ode; Hans Schmidt & Johannes Brahms, Sapphic Ode (German and English); Pollitt, Two Cats; A sapphic poem by some of my freshmen poets 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).
	3-22-10	Lit Festival--attend at least two events in place of class.
	3-30-10	Spring Break -- No Class
	4-6-10	Ideational level: elegies and animals Ideational level: Nature writing Workshopping Raether Curns Goode Michelsen 1 Michelsen 2 Pusz 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)
	4-13-10	Workshopping McCall Curns Michelsen Harmon 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: Divine Comedy Acquainted with the Night One of mine (with dogs) Homework: Write an elegy or nature poem (or choose another topic)
	4-20-09	Workshopping Goode ghazal found poem Pusz McCall Raether Michelsen Elegy terza rima sonic level: sonnets and fourteeners, including nonce sonnets Turco: 241-2; 254-6 Sonnet Herbert, Prayer Keats, Bright Star Meredith, Modern Love--16-line-sonnet sequence (don't read it all) Frost, Design Jarman, Four sonnets Kees, For my Daughter (also in Anthology) Bruce Smith, (a fourteener) Triolet (an explanation) (and another with examples by McPherson, Gioia, and others) Note: this form attracts people who think they are Irish Hardy, Birds at Winter Nightfall and The Coquette, and After (uses Triolet stanza) Cullen, For a Poet Cornford, To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train Teasdale, Four Triolets Triolets for the masses: A bunch of Triolets by MIT students about computing A chatroom challenge: Triolet contest HomeworK: Write one of the following: pantoum, villanelle, terzanelle, triolet, or sonnet (required if you didn't write a sapphic) or choose another topic
	4-27-09	Workshopping Curns Pusz Raether Harmon Ideational level: ars poetica; literature and language William Matthews Inspiration 980 The Ars Poetica (Poets.org) Poems about poetry More poems about Poetry The Secret of Poetry by the late lamented Jon Anderson By next Tuesday, send or bring a portfolio with a preface or ars poetica (poem about poetry) at the beginning.
	5-4	Portfolio due

madams (at) wcu.edu