English 403—Advanced Creative Writing: Poetry Fall 2005
Professor Hans Ostrom
Welcome to English 403. Here is some basic information:
My office: 336 Wyatt Hall. Office hours: T-Th 9:30-11:00, and by appointment. Email:
ostrom@ups.edu. Webpage: www.ups.edu/faculty/ostrom/ . Telephone: (879)-3434. Telephone for the English Department: (879)-3235. Mail box: located in the mail room near the English Department’s main office, third floor, Wyatt Hall.
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.
Objectives of the Course
The course gives you a chance to write poetry intensively, study the work of published poets, consider your work in a supportive but challenging setting, and examine theoretical and cultural underpinnings of contemporary poetry.
Many of you will continue to write after this term; for you the course will be an important step in a long journey. Some of you may not write a lot of poetry in the years ahead, but the course will nonetheless give you experience in reading and writing that you can draw on later, and you will likely continue to read poetry the rest of your lives.
To read poetry you might not otherwise encounter; to re-examine poetry you have already read; to risk sharing work-in-progress with others, in hopes of seeing things in your work you might not otherwise see; to explore the mysteries of language; to become a more generous, insightful reader; these are some other aims of the course.
The Etiquette and Atmosphere of the Course
Here are some guidelines to which all of us should try to adhere. None of them will be surprising to you or difficult for us to follow. Indeed, I hope they’ll seem familiar, even obvious, but sometimes it’s good to reaffirm the familiar. All are aimed at creating a productive, workable environment.
Group Work
A part--not all--of this course operates as a workshop, a teaching method that is often misunderstood. Group work is not for everyone. If you think writers have to work alone, or that advice from others somehow compromises your work, or that others always misunderstand your work, then do not take this class. A workshop is but one way to develop your writing. If you prefer another route, take it. The workshop method asks you to collaborate with good will, respect, and punctuality. It assumes that an audience's response to your work is not, in fact, always right but that it will help you see things in your writing you may have overlooked.
After years of trial and error using workshops, I have--for the moment--settled on the use of smaller groups (as opposed to the whole class); of immediate, spontaneous in-class responses (as opposed to taking colleagues' poems home); of the rule of silence (which I'll explain later); and of writing before we talk.
Poem and Poet
The focus of discussions must always be on the poem, not the poet. The guidelines we’ll discuss later spring from dozens of workshops I've led or taken part in, and you’re probably already familiar with them. They encourage you to look first for the strengths in any draft of a poem--yours or someone else's.
Please avoid extremes of accepting everything a group says about your work and rejecting everything it says. The group is there to allow you to take your poem on a trial run. Personality conflicts? We'll handle these if and when the come up.
Group-evaluation should offer support and detailed response & analysis. Pay attention to the way you phrase your critique; if a poem confuses or disturbs you, say so, but say so in a way that will make the writer feel PRODUCTIVE as she or he moves on to another draft and other poems.
It's up to you to make the most of the feedback you get--and to keep the group working well. You need not be friends, and you should not be competitors. As with so many other things in life, showing up and doing your best mean a lot.
We'll do a lot of reading. The idea here is to broaden your knowledge of poetry and to let you place your own work in several contexts. Poets who came before us shape the way we write, one way or another. Even if we choose to resist these contexts, we need to be aware of them. Resistance itself can be a good source of energy for writing.
I'll assign a few poems. Why assign poems? To get you to try something you might not otherwise try; to stretch the talent all of you have. This (loosely) directed writing will always leave you a lot of room in which to maneuver, however. Mostly we’ll just “play off” of what we read and not imitate in any mechanical way.
You'll present drafts of poems to one or two classmates, to your group, and to me. At the end of the term, you'll submit revised versions of these poems in a portfolio, titling the collection. We’ll work on revising poems and shaping the portfolio.
The feedback you'll get during the term will be from your colleagues--in writing and orally; from me, as I float from group to group--and as I comment in writing on each draft. Please come by during office hours and discuss your poems, too.
We’ll all constantly be tossing out ideas for poems, shaping exercises for in-class writing that will sometimes lead to poems, so you should have plenty of poetry taking shape in your notebook. Eight finished poems, then, is the bare minimum that should be in your portfolio; think more in terms of 10 or 12.
Suggestion
Read as much of The Norton Anthology of Poetry as you can. Jump into its 2,000+ pages and swim. Read as much poetry in general as you can. Read.
Elements on Which Your Grade Will Be Based
Portfolio: 60 per cent
Presentation on a book of poetry, plus two tests: 20 per cent, total.
Participation (class discussions, in-class writing and reading, group work, conferences, contribution to the classroom environment, attendance, etc.): 20 per cent. Coming to class, on time and prepared, is crucial. Missing class or coming to class late will affect your grade negatively.
Extra Credit: You will receive extra if you a) never miss a class, except in case of illness or emergency and b) if you are never late to class.
Extra Credit, Part II: You will receive extra credit if you attend a poetry reading on campus, or in Tacoma, or in Seattle, and write and submit a brief response to me.
Monday, August 29. Introduction to the course; review of syllabus and course-policies. Objectives of the course. Looking at a poem. Some writing. Please start reading—carefully—the essay, “Versification,” by Jon Stallworthy, in the Norton Anthology; it begins on p. 2027.
Wednesday, August 31. In The Eye of the Poet, please read “Kit & Kaboodle,” by Yusef Komunyakaa. What do poets do? Some answers: In the Norton Anthology, please read and analyze “Incident,” by Countee Cullen (p. 1446); “When to Her Lute Corinna Sings,” by Thomas Campion (p. 280); “Delight in Disorder,” by Robert Herrick; “The Buck in Snow,” by Edna St. Vincent Millay (p. 1384); “anyone lived in a pretty how town” and “who are you,little i,” by e.e. cummings (pp. 1396-97);
Friday, September 2. Poem due, with copies. Smaller groups.
Monday, September 5. For today, please finish reading the essay,“Versification,” be ready to discuss it, and be ready to ask questions. Also for today, please read William Shakespeare’s Sonnet #18, p. 259, Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “The Windhover” (p. 1166), “Song for a Dark Girl” and “Harlem,” by Langston Hughes (pp. 1432-33), “Sestina,” by Elizabeth Bishop (p. 1520), and “The Waking,” by Theodore Roethke (p. 1500).
Wednesday, September 7. Continue discussion of poems from Monday. In the Handbook of Poetic Forms, read the discussions of Line, Meter, Rhyme, Rhythm, and Sonnet, please. Practicing some meters and some rhymes.
Friday, September 9. A “sound sonnet” is due, with copies. Trios.
Monday, September 12. Poem due, with copies. Group work, with larger groups. Please start reading the essay, “Poetic Syntax,” in the Norton Anthhology (pp. 2053-2073).
Wednesday, September 14. Group work, continued.
Friday, September 16. For today, finish reading the essay, “Poetic Syntax.” Improvising with some different forms of syntax. For today, in the Norton Anthology, also read “We Real Cool,” by Gwendolyn Brooks (p. 1588), and “Sometime During Eternity,” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (p. 1606).
Monday, September 19. For today, in the Norton Anthology, please read “Goodbye,” by Alun Lewis (p. 1575), “Since 1619” and “Childhood,” by Margaret Walker (pp. 1576-1577), “Train Journey,” by Judith Wright (p. 1578), “Remembering the ‘Thirties,” by Donald Davie (p.p. 1641-43). Remembering the ‘Nineties.
Wednesday, September 21. For today, in The Eye of the Poet, please read Chapter III, “The Line/The Form/The Music.” Please bring in a list composed of the first word in each of the poems you have written for class so far. Also (very important), bring the Norton Anthology to class. Writing.
Friday, September 23. For today, in the Handbook of Poetic Forms, please read the discussions of Alphabet Poem, Cinquain, Epistle, and List Poem.
Monday, September 26. Poem due, with copies. Larger groups.
Wednesday, September 28. Group work.
Friday, September 30. For today, in the Norton Anthology, please read “For Sidney Bichet,” “Talking in Bed,” “Sad Steps,” and “This Be the Verse,” by Philip Larkin. His poems begin on p. 1648. Review for test.
Monday, October 3. Test.
Wednesday, October 5. For today, in the Norton Anthology, please read “New Year’s: A Short Pantoum,” by Greg Williamson, pp. 2024-25. In the Handbook of Poetic Forms, please read the discussion of Pantoum. In The Eye of the Poet, please read Chapter V, “Audience.”
Friday, October 7. Religious poems. For today, in the Norton Anthology, please re-read the poem by Ferlinghetti on p. 1606, and read “Hymn to God My God, in My Sickness,” by John Donne (p. 322), “Upon a Spider Catching a Fly,” by Edward Taylor (pp. 538-539), “Brahma,” by Ralph Waldo Emerson, (pp. 945-46); “Steal Away to Jesus,” (p. 1058), Emily Dickinson’s #479 (p. 1119), “[No Worst, There Is None]”, by Gerard Manley Hopkins (p. 1169), “Ecce Homo,” by David Gascoyne (pp. 1581-83), “God, A Poem,” by James Fenton, pp. 1965-66, “As Our Bodies Rise, Our Names Turn Into Light,” by Charles Wright (p. 1867), and “Musée des Beaux Arts,” by W.H. Auden (p. 1471).
Monday, October 10. Field trip. Writing.
Wednesday, October 12. Poem due, with copies. Group work.
Friday, October 14. Group work.
Monday, October 17. Fall-break day.
Wednesday, October 19. For today, please bring the title and author of the extra book you have chosen to read, and about which you will make a report. For today, in the Handbook of Poetic Forms, please read the discussion of Cento. Bring in at least one copy of all the poems you’ve written for the class, and bring your writer’s notebook.
Friday, October 21. Past. For today, bring in some information about the year, month, day, and place of your birth. Culturally, politically, socially, what was going on then? Rummage around in the library and on the Internet. What was going on in your family then?
Monday, October 24. Poem due, with copies. Group work.
Wednesday, October 26. Group work.
Friday, October 28. Conferences and presentations explained.
Monday, October 31. Gothic. In the Norton Anthology, please read “The Raven,” by Poe and “The Unquiet Grave” (p. 104) and Dickinson’s # 340 (p. 1115). Sign up for conferences and presentations.
Wednesday, November 2. Conferences.
Friday, November 4. Conferences.
Monday, November 7. Conferences.
Wednesday, November 9. Presentations.
Friday, November 11. Presentations.
Monday, November 14. Presentations.
Wednesday, November 16. Poem due, with copies. Group work.
Friday, November 18. Group work.
Monday, November 21. For today, in The Eye of the Poet, please read Chapter II, “What Is a Poem?” In the Norton Anthology, please read “Ars Poetica,” by Archibald McLeish (p. 1381). Writing an ars poetica poem.
Wednesday, November 23. Professor in office, available to talk with students.
Monday, November 28. Bring in the poem you will read at the poetry reading. Review for test.
Wednesday, November 30. Test.
Friday, December 2. Poetry reading.
Monday, December 5. Bring a revised poem.
Wednesday, December 7. Bring another revised poem.
The portfolio is due on Wednesday of Finals Week.