English 340: Genre—Poetry (Contemporary American Poetry)
Spring 2006 Professor Hans Ostrom University of Puget Sound
Welcome to English 340.
Here is some basic information:
My Office: Wyatt 336. Office-Hours for Spring 2006: Tuesday-Thursday, 9:30-11:00, and by appointment. The English Department’s telephone: x3235 (messages); my telephone: x3434 (voice mail). Electronic mail: ostrom@ups.edu. The English Department’s mailboxes are located in the room next to the Philosophy Department’s main office on the third floor of Wyatt Hall.
Home page: www.ups.edu/faculty/ostrom/. A printable copy of this syllabus is posted on the home page.
The University’s Equal Opportunity Statement
The University of Puget Sound does not discriminate in education or employment on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, religion, creed, age, disability, marital or familial status, sexual orientation, Vietnam-era veteran status, gender identity, or any other basis prohibited by local, state, or federal laws. This policy complies with the spirit and the letter of applicable federal, state and local laws, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Sections 503 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Questions about the policy may be referred to the University's Director of Human Resources and Affirmative Action (253-879-3116) or the Office of Civil Rights, Department of Education, Washington, D.C. 20202.
The Etiquette and Atmosphere of the Course
Here are some guidelines to which all of us should try to adhere. I trust none of them will be surprising or difficult. Indeed, I hope they’ll seem familiar, but sometimes it’s good to reaffirm the familiar. All are aimed at creating a productive, workable environment.
Please do attend class unless you are ill or otherwise indisposed, and please do try to arrive on time. I will try to do the same. If regular, timely attendance is not your forte, this may not be the class for you.
Please do listen while others are talking. I will do the same. Although conversations on the side are usually not intended to be rude or disruptive, they can have that effect.
Please try to do your best. The more each of us contributes to the course, the more each of us will get out of it.
Please try to turn in work and complete reading-assignments on time. But also please ask me to clarify assignments and guidelines if they are unclear, and please let me know if an illness or an emergency has prevented you from completing your work on time.
Please do buy all of the books required for the course, read them according to the syllabus, and bring them to class on the appropriate days.
Please don’t eat in class (every professor has his or her pet-peeves); a cup of coffee (for example) is fine, however.
Objectives of the Course
Because English 340 focuses on poetry as a genre, we will explore lyric and narrative poetry with great attention to poetics and prosody, elements of which include imagery, meter, rhythm, personae, allusion, and poetic language. If you do not enjoy the close, analytical, and sometimes technical analysis of poetry, this is probably not the course for you. If you do not enjoy reading a lot of poetry, this is probably not the course for you.
Additionally, we will focus on poetry written in a particular nation (the U.S.) at a particular time (after World War II, much of it in the last third of the 20th century). As well as studying poetry as a distinct genre of literature, then, we will study it in its historical, social, and political contexts. As we read and study contemporary American poetry, we will also consider its roots in earlier poetry, including Modernist poetry, so some of the poems we will study will come from eras before World War II. In the early part of the semester especially, we will move back and forth between Modernist and contemporary poetry to start a conversation between the two.
The course will ask us to be flexible readers open to a variety of poetry and willing to work with poems that may not be immediately accessible, that may be “difficult” in one way or another, and that may not appeal to us right away. Studying poetry has always required this kind of flexibility.
Probably most if not all of you come to the class with some experience in and a liking for reading poetry. In this regard, a goal of the course is to broaden your experience, make good use of your existing appreciation for poetry, and add to the ways in which you read, interpret, enjoy, and perhaps even write poetry. It is in the nature of modern and contemporary American poetry to ask a lot of readers, to test and stretch readers’ views of what poetry should be and what it should do.
We will also write critical essays on poetry, working to enlarge our capacities as students of literature. In some cases we will write poetry as a way to study it.
We will aim to understand poetry better and, through poetry, to understand language and experience better.
Required Books
Ryan Van Cleave. Contemporary American Poetry: Behind the Scenes. New York: Longman, 2003.
Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellman, and Robert O’Clair, editors. The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Third Edition. Volumes One and Two. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003.
A single volume of poetry published after 1970 by an American poet. We will discuss the selection of this book later.
Approximate Breakdown of Elements on Which Your Grade Will Be Based
Two critical essays, 25 per cent each: 50 per cent
Two tests, 10 per cent each: 20 percent
Participation (Attendance, Promptness, Productive Contributions to Discussion, Having Prepared for Class, etc.): 20 per cent
Oral presentation on one book of poetry: 10 per cent
Extra Credit: You may attend a poetry-reading in Seattle, Tacoma, or Olympia or one on campus, write a one-page response to it, and receive extra credit. Of course, a presentation of performance-poetry counts as a reading.
Extra Credit II: You may read a recent (within the year) issue of Poetry magazine (Chicago) and write a one-page response to it.
Schedule of Class-Meetings, Assignments, and Activities
Wednesday, January 18. Overview of the syllabus and discussion of the course’s objectives. Diagnostic quiz.
Friday, January 20. Topic: Modernist moves. Reading: In the Norton, Volume One, please read Stein, 178-184; Lowell, “The Pike,” 198-199; Frost, “Design,” 221; Stevens, “Of Modern Poetry,” 255-56; Robinson, “Richard Cory,” 163; Jeffers, “Shine, Perishing Republic,” 415; McKay, “America” and “White City,” 503; MacLeish, “Ars Poetica,” 515; Owen, “Miners,” 526, and “Dulce et Decorum Est,” 527; Hughes, “Song for a Dark Girl.” As you read and study these poems, think about the variety of poetic moves being made. Make a list of these moves. How does each poem implicitly advance a position about how poetry should be written?
Monday, January 23. Poems from Friday, continued. Modernist moves, continued. What are the different views of humanity, nation, civilization, etc., in these poems? In your opinion, which poems display the most interesting innovations?
Wednesday, January 25. In Contemporary American Poetry, please read poems and commentary by Peter Meinke, 193-207. Think about the poems and commentary in relation to Modernist moves.
Friday, January 27. We listen to T.S. Eliot reading all of The Waste Land. Bring the Norton anthology, Volume One, to class. If this is the quintessential Modernist poem, then what is quintessentially Modern? What is Eliot trying to do with poetry? What does he expect from the audience? What patterns of imagery and allusion can you identify?
Monday, January 30. Modernist poetics. For today, please read selections from statements of poetics, in the Norton Anthology, Volume One, by Loy (923-925), Lowell (926-928), Pound (939-941), Williams (954-960), Lawrence (960-964), and Hughes (964-968). On your own, choose and read at least one poem by each of these poets that we haven’t already read. Be ready to discuss the poems, especially in relation to the poets’ statements.
Wednesday, February 1. In Contemporary American Poetry, read the introduction by Edward Hirsch and locate his ideas in relation to the statements we read for Monday. In CAP, please also read the poems and commentary by Dick Allen.
Friday February 3. In CAP, please read the poems and commentary by Robert Bly (starting on p. 32) and Jane Hirshfield (starting on p. 139).
Monday, February 6. Listening (actively) to Modern poets reading their poems. For today, please read, in the Norton Anthology Volume One, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” by W.B. Yeats (94), “Still Falls the Rain,” by Edith Sitwell (428), “After Apple-Picking” (207), “The Groundhog,” by Richard Eberhart (740). As you listen and read along in class, take notes about what interests or perplexes you.
Wednesday, February 8. Discussing poems from Monday. Bring the Norton Volume One.
Friday, February 10. Review of poetic terms and concepts. In CAP, please read the glossary. Bring the Norton Anthology Volume One to class.
Monday, February 13. For today, in CAP, please read the poems and commentary by Kay Ryan. Essay assigned, discussed.
Wednesday, February 15. For today, in CAP, please read the poems and commentary by Sharon Olds. In each of the poems, identify metaphors and similes, please. Metaphor and simile worksheet.
Friday, February 17. Metaphor and simile worksheet is due. In the Norton Anthology Volume Two, please read the biographical note for Ferlinghetti and the poems (pp. 162 and ff.) Also please read the biographical note for Allen Ginsberg (334) and the poems “A Supermarket in California”, “America,” and “Sphincter.” Review for mid-term.
Monday, February 20. Two tasks: 1) In the Norton Anthology Volume Two, please read “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg; 2) Come up with a way to help readers interpret the poem—strategies and tactics for breaking the poem down so as to build up our understanding of it. What is one productive, practical way to approach such a large, dense, rhetorically overwhelming poem, in your view? Explain. Lecture by Emily Bernard is coming up (see extra credit).
Wednesday, February 22. For today, in the Norton Anthology Volume Two, please read the biographical notes about and poems by Gary Snyder (starts on p. 534) and Lucille Clifton (starts on 658).
Friday, February 24. For today, please read the biographical notes about and poems by Marilyn Hacker (starts on 811) and Agha Shahid Ali (starts on 887).
Monday, February 27. Rough draft of essay due.
Wednesday, March 1. For today, in the Norton Anthology Volume Two, please read the biographical note about and poems by David Wagoner (starts on 358) and Richard Hugo (starts on 256).
Friday, March 3. For today, in the Norton Anthology Volume Two, please read the biographical note about and poems by A. R. Ammons (starts on 288). Review again for midterm.
Monday, March 6. Midterm test.
Wednesday, March 8. Essay due, in class. Please submit it in a manila folder. The paper must have page numbers and be paper-clipped. You must include rough drafts and notes in the folder, or I won’t read the essay.
Friday, March 10. Taking stock.
Monday, March 20. For today, read the biographical note for and the poems by Robert Creeley in the Norton, Volume Two (begins on 325). Poem assigned for March 27.
Wednesday, March 22. Assignment explained: presentation on a book of poems. For today, read the biographical note for and the poems by Audre Lorde in the Norton, Volume Two (begins on 616). Please also read the note for and poems by Marge Piercy (starts on 656).
Friday, March 24. For today, please read the biographical note for and poems by Sylvia Plath in the Norton, Volume Two (starts on 593).
Monday, March 27. A poem by you is due—the original plus three copies. For today, please read the biographical notes for and poems by Charles Simic (starts on 705) and James Tate (starts on 837).
Wednesday, March 29. Please select your book of poems by today. Sign up for presentations. For today, please read the note for and poems by Gary Soto (starts on 969).
Friday, March 31.For today, please read the note for and poems by Yusef Komunyakaa (starts on 858) and Mark Doty (993).
Monday, April 3. Second essay assigned.
Wednesday, April 5. For today, please read the notes for and poems by Thylias Moss (starts on 999) and Louise Erdrich (starts on 1004).
Friday, April 7. For today, please read the notes for and poems by Marilyn Chin (starts on 1013) and Cathy Song (starts on 1018).
Monday, April 10. For today, please read the notes for and poems by Lorna Dee Cervantes (starts on 1009) and Henri Cole (starts on 1034). Start review for second test.
Wednesday, April 12. Presentations.
Friday, April 14. Presentations.
Monday, April 17. Presentations.
Wednesday, April 19. Rough draft of second essay due.
Friday, April 21. Presentations.
Monday, April 24. Presentations. Review for second test.
Friday, April 28. Second test.
Monday, May 1. Second essay due.
Wednesday, May 3. Field trip.