Sailing Alone Around the Room Group Discussion

Some questions to discuss:

1. How can a title change the impact of a poem? Which of the poems you read stand out in this regard? Would you change any titles?

2. Favorite poem(s)? What exactly did you like?

3. Poem(s) you disliked? Why exactly?

4. What do you notice about the author's style?

 
When looking at a specific poem you might want to ask yourself:
(writinghood.com)

1.          Who is speaking? What do you know about him/her?
2.          What is being said?
3.          How is it said?
4.          Where does the poem take place? Where was it written?
5.          When does the poem take place? When was it written?
6.          Why? This question should be asked lastly, because if we bog ourselves down with the why while we are reading or just after reading, then we might create meanings that are not intended…or come away lacking understanding or enjoyment of the poem…which may cause us to judge it negatively…or abort further interest in it…causing us to be less open to other poems.


Read more: http://writinghood.com/online-writing/six-questions-to-ask-after-reading-a-poem/#ixzz27fiWiP00

HOMEWORK

For Thursday, 9/27:

• 4-5 Poems in progress (past due)
• Edit/improve work returned to you today. Remember no grade means it was an automatic D. Do what you need to do to raise your grades.
• Read the first section of Sailing Alone Around the Room (p.1-18) Please read carefully/thoroughly. I assigned less pages because I am looking for quality. Don't just breeze over the reading.
• Please post a reaction/response to the reading on the blog.

Agenda

1. "Business"

• Do you have any work to hand in?
• Passing back assignments

2. Read/Discuss: Hope by Shirley Kaufman

3. Quiz!

4. Library

Good morning. As you can see I'm out sick today. Please do the following for credit:

Period 1: workshop the poems you were asked to bring in for credit. Revise and hand in if you have time.

Period 2:

Creating a Word Bank for PoetryGo to the following website:http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180

Read poems #1-7. If you have looked at these poems before, please find poems that you haven't read. As you read, choose 3 words from EACH poem and make a list. (The best way to do this is either in your journal – where you will get credit; or you may keep a word document open and minimized on the bottom of your screen to collect the words).
Choose interesting or “powerful” words—words that draw YOUR attention; the best 3 single words in the poem. Avoid phrases.

Once you have a list with 21 words, use your word bank to create a poem of your own.
• You DO NOT have to use all 21 words in your poem.
• Your poem should make sense. Try to avoid sentence fragments. (Consider your character, setting, theme, conflict, etc. to help write a story...yes, even poetry has a story.)
• You may include as many OTHER words as you’d like.

Please hand in all of your work by the end of class. We will have our quiz Tuesday.

Good Morning!

I have been spending a great deal of time reading your completed work thus far. I think you are all doing a fabulous job. Keep it up!

Agenda

1. Discuss/revise the homework. I realize now the "short bio" portion was not clear.
2. Small groups: present poets/poems
3. Workshop poems brought to class.
4. More writing time!

*You will have a quiz on Friday! You will also need 4-5 "poems in progress" on Friday.

HOMEWORK

Introduction
In this class you will learn many poetic terms and write a great deal of your own poetry.  However, there is still something to be learned by looking at the works of the "masters" of poetry.  What techniques and skills do they use?  What makes their particular styles unique?  How do they accomplish the difficult task of writing moving and meaningful poetry using the same tools that you have been using?

Task
Select a poet of your choice.  After reading and researching some of the poems by that poet, write a 1-2 page response examining what makes the works of that poet unique. You are also welcome to provide interesting biographical information, but please avoid copying and pasting from online sources. This should be an authentic learning experience.

Process:
1.Select a poet of your choice.
2. Select 2-3 poems that are representative of your poet.
3. Write a short bio of the poet and response to their work (see task.)
4. Write your own poem using something you learned about your poet. (Please develop your poems fully!)

*I have added to the requirements of this assignment. Please share that information with your fellow classmates so they are prepared for class on Wednesday. Thank you!

Line Breaking

You are supposed to have a few polished poems with you today.

Step 1: Take a look at your poems and read/think about the information below. Jot down anything you happen to notice in your notebooks.

Line breaking:

Speed:  Short or long?  Enjambed or end-stopped?

Sound:  Rhyme emphasized?  Emphasize or de-emphasize rhythm?

Syntax:  Does the poem have line breaks that are compatible with its syntactical units?  Where are prepositions placed--at the beginning or end?  If the line breaks are unconventional, what is the effect?

Surprise: When a line breaks at an unexpected place, what is the effect?  What is the strongest position for a word?

Sense: Do the line breaks add to the overall meaning or sense of the poem?  Do they further its argument (logical or sound sense)?

Space:  Do the line breaks represent the timing of the poem?  What do you gather about the poem based on its appearance?  Does the creation of stanzas organize the space of the poem?

Step 2: Read this fabulous poem!  Ask Me

Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made. I will listen to what you say. You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait. We know the current is there, hidden; and there are comings and goings from miles away that hold the stillness exactly before us. What the river says, that is what I say. William Stafford  Step 3: Reactions to Stafford's poem? Post! Step 4: If time permits, write a poem to work with on the Baggage Switch Exercise. You may also use a poem you have already written. The experience should be valuable and authentic.

Step 5: Baggage Switch Exercise:

Make a list of all the verbs used in one of your poems.

Swap your list with a partner.

Replace the verbs in your poem with some verbs from the list you receive.  You can change the tense and number.

DO NOT MERELY CHOOSE SYNONYMS.  LOOK FOR SURPRISING JUXTAPOSITIONS.  FOCUS ON WORD CHOICE (DICTION)!

Step 6: Turn in all homework!

Possible quiz Friday or Tuesday. Any information presented in class is fair game.

Assignments!

Due Monday, 9/17: 2-3 Polished/Portfolio ready poems+Evidence of workshop discussions (notes, google docs, etc. accepted.)

Past Due: 9/7- 1st poem and blog name
                       1st blog post (classwork)

                9/11- 1st Ekphrastic poem
                       - Notes on "The Dance" (classwork)

                9/13- New Poem (ekphrastic or not) and 2 drafts of 1st ekphrastic poem
                         -Blog post/discussion (classwork)


If you need clarity on any of these assignments, please ask!

Dear Poets,

I came across a note written to me by my own poetry teacher, Jack Ridl, around this time a few years back. I wanted to pass some of his words on to you because I think they are relevant for our class and reflective on the anniversary of 9/11, which we acknowledged on Tuesday:

"Yes, It is September 11, an event that has marked us all. And while we remember it, let's also remind ourselves that while it can be good to do good and good to combat what destroys the good, it is also crucial that we continue to create good. We are creative beings. We arrived with that as a given. And when you create a poem, you have placed good into the world... We artists are questioned over and over again about our "usefulness." We are vitally useful. Our use is to heal, comfort, to lead to realization, to bring laughter, to sing the blues, to celebrate, to be of soul-filling USE. This is a great good thing we do.

The Christmas after 9/11 Sharon Dolin, Billy Collins, and I were asked to read our poems in NYC. Can you imagine how we felt? What could we possibly do to be of any "use"? We told those present that we would do what we could to give them two hours for their hearts, souls. And that's all we could do. After the reading, the audience stayed and stayed and said how much that two hours mattered."

I hope you know how much your poems matter!
We are going to take a look at a poem or two by Billy Collins today.

Some bio information:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/billy-collins#poet

Video of Collins reading "Names" and reflecting on 9/11
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/video/301

You can listen to "Workshop" here:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19755

You can read here:

 Workshop

By Billy Collins b. 1941 Billy Collins

I might as well begin by saying how much I like the title.   

It gets me right away because I’m in a workshop now   

so immediately the poem has my attention,

like the Ancient Mariner grabbing me by the sleeve.

And I like the first couple of stanzas,

the way they establish this mode of self-pointing

that runs through the whole poem

and tells us that words are food thrown down   

on the ground for other words to eat.   

I can almost taste the tail of the snake   

in its own mouth,

if you know what I mean.

But what I’m not sure about is the voice,

which sounds in places very casual, very blue jeans,   

but other times seems standoffish,

professorial in the worst sense of the word

like the poem is blowing pipe smoke in my face.   

But maybe that’s just what it wants to do.

What I did find engaging were the middle stanzas,   

especially the fourth one.

I like the image of clouds flying like lozenges   

which gives me a very clear picture.

And I really like how this drawbridge operator   

just appears out of the blue

with his feet up on the iron railing

and his fishing pole jigging—I like jigging—

a hook in the slow industrial canal below.

I love slow industrial canal below. All those l’s.

Maybe it’s just me,

but the next stanza is where I start to have a problem.   

I mean how can the evening bump into the stars?   

And what’s an obbligato of snow?

Also, I roam the decaffeinated streets.

At that point I’m lost. I need help.

The other thing that throws me off,

and maybe this is just me,

is the way the scene keeps shifting around.   

First, we’re in this big aerodrome

and the speaker is inspecting a row of dirigibles,   

which makes me think this could be a dream.   

Then he takes us into his garden,

the part with the dahlias and the coiling hose,   

though that’s nice, the coiling hose,

but then I’m not sure where we’re supposed to be.   

The rain and the mint green light,

that makes it feel outdoors, but what about this wallpaper?   

Or is it a kind of indoor cemetery?

There’s something about death going on here.

In fact, I start to wonder if what we have here   

is really two poems, or three, or four,   

or possibly none.

But then there’s that last stanza, my favorite.

This is where the poem wins me back,

especially the lines spoken in the voice of the mouse.

I mean we’ve all seen these images in cartoons before,

but I still love the details he uses

when he’s describing where he lives.

The perfect little arch of an entrance in the baseboard,   

the bed made out of a curled-back sardine can,   

the spool of thread for a table.

I start thinking about how hard the mouse had to work   

night after night collecting all these things

while the people in the house were fast asleep,   

and that gives me a very strong feeling,

a very powerful sense of something.

But I don’t know if anyone else was feeling that.   

Maybe that was just me.

Maybe that’s just the way I read it.

Billy Collins, “Workshop” from The Art of Drowning. Copyright © 1995 by Billy Collins. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Reprinted with the permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press, www.pitt.edu/~press/.

Buy or borrow this book:

Source: The Art of Drowning (1995)

Please post a reaction to the information/poems provided today and/or the value of workshopping our own poems in this class. Develop your thoughts and respond to others in order tio receive full credit!

Ekphrastic Poem William Carlos Williams "The Dance"

“Poets are damned but they are not blind, they see with the eyes of angels.”
― William Carlos Williams

Note how Wiliams' poem mimics the rhythms of the dance...

William Carlos Williams

The Dance
In Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess,
the dancers go round, they go round and
around, the squeal and the blare and the
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
tipping their bellies (round as the thick-
sided glasses whose wash they impound)
their hips and their bellies off balance
to turn them. Kicking and rolling
about the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those
shanks must be sound to bear up under such
rollicking measures, prance as they dance
in Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess.

Ekphrastic Poetry

Ekphrastic Poetry

Ekphrasis: writing that comments upon another art form, for instance a poem about a photograph or a novel about a film.  Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a prime example of this type of writing, since the entire poem concerns the appearance and meaning of an ancient piece of pottery.

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
    Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
    A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunt about thy shape
    Of deities or mortals, or of both,
        In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
    What men or gods are these?  What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit?  What struggle to escape?
        What pipes and timbrels?  What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
    Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
    Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
    Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
        Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal - yet, do not grieve;
        She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
    For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
    Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
    For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
    For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
        For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
    That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
        A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
    To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
    And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
    Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
        Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
    Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
        Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape!  Fair attitude! with brede
    Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
    Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
    When old age shall this generation waste,
        Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
    Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all
        Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.





The Poet Speaks of Art

Introductory Remarks by Harry Rusche on Poets and Paintings

Ever since the Roman poet Horace set down in his Ars Poetica (c. 13 BC) the dictum "ut pictura poesis"--"as is painting, so is poetry"--the two arts have been wedded in the critical mind. Poets and painters sometimes turn to one another for inspiration, and the dialogue has been mutually beneficial. Painters and illustrators have often been inspired by literature, especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The critic Richard Altick says, for example, that between 1760 and 1900 there existed around 2,300 paintings based on Shakespeare's plays alone. These Shakespeare paintings are only one-fifth of the 11,500 paintings on subjects and scenes from literature--and we are talking only about paintings done in England during those years! Sheer numbers indicate the influence of authors on artists. Listed in the section on additional readings are several books that discuss the relationships between art and literature.
The road runs both ways, of course, and writers turn as well to paintings for their inspiration. In the small anthology of poems and paintings exhibited here, some interesting questions arise as we contemplate the relationship between the poem and the picture. Is the poem simply an objective verbal description of the work of art, or does the poet make conclusions about what the painting means? Could you reconstruct the painting from the poem without actually seeing it? Why does the poet dwell on some features of the the painting and ignore other aspects of the picture? Do you agree with the meaning the poet "reads" in the painting, or do you think the writer misreads it or warps the scene depicted to personal ends?

To view examples, go to this link:

http://valerie6.myweb.uga.edu/ekphrasticpoetry.html

(Do not do the assignment on this website. Read the examples provided only.)

Welcome to Advanced Poetry!

This semester course is for senior Creative Writing students interested in studying the art of poetry and writing original poetry. An open mind and supportive attitude will be essential as we workshop each other’s poems. We will be exploring several approaches to the art of writing poetry through a variety of different exercises to generate poems in open and closed forms.

Please join this blog and comment on this post for credit!