English 403—Advanced Creative Writing: Poetry Fall 2007
Professor Hans Ostrom
Welcome to English 403. Here is some basic information:
My office: 336 Wyatt Hall. Office hours: Tuesdays, 9:00-11:00 a.m., 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, cultural, and technical underpinnings of contemporary poetry. One such underpinning is prosody, which the OED defines as “the science of versification” and which might also be seen a way to study the inner workings of how poets, even in free verse, evoke and manipulate sound by means of the written word. Such evocation of sound is a mysterious process, partly because words on the page are literally mute but figuratively noisy. The mystery makes the study of prosody all the more pleasurable, if you like that sort of thing, and if you’re a poet, you do like that sort of thing.
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, just to gather our thoughts, 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, chiefly 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 improvise upon what we read rather than imitating mechanically, and often we’ll create these ideas for poetry together. The directed writing will not be rigid, in other words.
You'll present drafts of poems to one or two classmates, to your group, to the whole class (in a couple of instances), and to me. At the end of the term, you'll submit revised versions of these poems in a portfolio, titling the collection and including a brief discussion of how your poetry has developed during the semester. 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. Feel free to share poems with each other outside of class, too. For example, you may share a certain poem with someone who happened not to be in your group when your poem was discussed. Join a poetry-group in the Writer’s Guild, too, if you like, to get extra feedback.
We’ll all constantly be tossing out ideas for poems, shaping exercises for in-class writing that will sometimes lead to poems, and writing in class (often on the spur of the moment, to use a cliché), so you should have plenty of poetry taking shape in your notebook. Please do bring a notebook and pen to class each session, therefore. Seven finished poems, then, should be in your portfolio, although you might have as many as 8 or 10.
Required Texts
Please purchase these texts, do the assigned reading, and bring the pertinent books to class.
Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellmann, and Robert O’Clair, The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Volume 2: Contemporary Poetry. Third Edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003.
Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing. New York: W.W. Norton, 1979.
Ron Padgett, A Handbook of Poetic Forms. New York: Teachers and Writers Collaborative, 1987.
You will also select and read an additional book of poetry by one author, and you will make a presentation on this book and author, but you may borrow the book from a library, if you choose to do so.
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. The tests will cover material we study in Richard Hugo’s book, material from the “Introduction” to the Norton Anthology, and poems we read for and discuss in class, so it’s a good idea, of course, to keep up with the reading, to take notes in class, and to ask questions about things you think you do not understand.
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. Attendance guidelines: Each absence after the third one will start to erode your final grade. Each late arrival after the second one counts as an absence.
Extra Credit: 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 (one page, word-processed, double-spaced). You may repeat the extra credit up to three times.
Wednesday, September 5. Overview of the course. Please read the syllabus carefully and begin to decide whether you want to remain in the course. If the syllabus suggests to you that you may not enjoy the class, you have the option of taking English 403 in Spring 2008 (for example) from another professor. Some writing in class, on “the spur of the moment.” Get started on the reading for Friday because there is a lot of it.
Friday, September 7. In the Norton, please read “Pacific Lament” and “That Thing Was Moving,” by Charles Olsen; “Legacy” and “A New Reality,” by Amiri Baraka; “Fish,” by Elizabeth Bishop; “Our Ground Time . . .” and “Bliss,” by Maxine Kumin. Please also read, in Hugo’s book, “In Defense of Creative Writing Classes.” And in Padgett’s book, please read “Free Verse.”
Monday, September 10. Poem due, word processed, original plus three copies. A brief review of group-work. Smaller groups. Turn in one clean copy of the poem to me, please.
Wednesday, September 12. For today, read pages xliii to lii in the “Introduction” to the Norton Anthology. Also read “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” by Randall Jarrell, “For the Union Dead,” by Robert Lowell, and “Epilogue,” by Robert Lowell.
Friday, September 14. In Hugo’s book, please read “Nuts and Bolts.” In Padgett’s book, please read “Foot.” Also please read “The Death of a Toad” and “Playboy,” by Richard Wilbur. Please scan (as in scansion) these two poems; mark the stressed and unstressed syllables.
Monday, September 17. For today, a new poem is due, the original plus at least 4 copies. Larger groups, of 7 or 8. Submit one clean copy to me, please.
Wednesday, September 19. Group work, continued.
Friday, September 21. In the Norton, please read all of the poems by Dylan Thomas. Take notes concerning what you want to say about these poems. In Padgett’s book, please read “Villanelle,” “Ode,” and “Elegy.”
Monday, September 24. For today, please read the four poems by Karl Shapiro in the Norton. As always, make some notes.
Wednesday, September 26. For today, a poem is due, plus enough copies for every other person in class. Full-class workshop.
Friday, September 28. Full-class workshop, continued.
Monday, October 1. Full-class workshop, continued.
Wednesday, October 3. Full-class workshop, concluded.
Friday, October 5. For today, please read, in Hugo’s book, “Writing Off the Subject” and “The Triggering Town.” Be able to explain in your own terms the concept of writing “off” the subject, and think about how to adapt the concept of “the triggering town” to your own way of writing and to things about which you write.
Monday, October 8. For today, in the Norton, please read the poems by Gwendolyn Brooks. How does she work with metrical variation? Locate some specific examples that you especially like.
Wednesday, October 10. For today, in Hugo’s book, please read “Assumptions” and “Stray Thoughts on Roethke and Teaching.” Review for test.
Friday, October 12. For today, a poem is due, the original plus several copies. Turn in a copy to me. Larger groups.
Monday, October 15. Group work, continued.
Wednesday, October 17. For today, please read “Blank Verse,” “Sonnet,” and “Stanza” in Padgett’s book. In the Norton, please read “Snowflakes,” by Howard Nemerov, “This Be the Verse,” by Philip Larkin, and “Traveling Through the Dark,” by William Stafford. And please re-read—and analyze as a sonnet—Dylan Thomas’s “When All My Five and Country Senses See.” Review for test.
Friday, October 19. First test.
Wednesday, October 24. Bring in a revision of one of your earlier poems for this class—the original plus two copies.
Friday, October 26. In Padgett’s book, please read the entries for Ballad, Couplet, Ottava Rima, and Sestina. In the Norton, please read Elizabeth Bishop’s “Sestina.” Also, go on a scavenger hunt in the Norton and find a poem in couplets (two-line stanzas) that you like. The poem need not have rhyming couplets.
Monday, October 29. A draft of a verse-form poem is due. Options: Ballad, Blank Verse,
Sonnet, one or two stanzas of Ottava Rima, Sestina, Villanelle, or a poem in couplets. Please look ahead to October 27.
Wednesday, October 31. Verse-form poem due, with 4-8 copies. Please turn in one clean copy to me. Larger groups.
Friday, November 2. Group work, continued.
Monday, November 5. For today, please read pages li to the end of the “Introduction” to the Norton Anthology. How would you summarize the developments discussed in this part of the “Introduction”? Take notes, please. For today, you need to have selected the extra book of poetry that you will read and on which you will report. Sign up for reports. Between next week and the end of the term, each of you will visit my office hours and report on the book. You will provide some biographical background of the author, give an overview of the book, discuss at least one of the poems in depth, and answer questions.
Wednesday, November 7. For today, please read, in the Norton, “Dog,” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “Naughty Boy,” “A Wicker Basket,” “For Love,” and “`I Keep to Myself Such Measures,’” by Robert Creeley. Sign up for Monday’s assignment. Three people will sign up for one of the following five statements at the back of the Norton:
Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin, Frank O’Hara, Denise Levertov, and Seamus Heaney.
Friday, November 9. For today, please read the poems by Audre Lorde in the Norton. Some writing in class.
Monday, November 12. Three groups of five will summarize the statements of poetics for one another. Keep your summary to 5-8 minutes, please. Thanks!
Wednesday, November 14. Poem due, with 4-8 copies, one clean copy for me. Larger groups.
Friday, November 16. Group work, continued.
Monday, November 19. For today, please read “Daddy,” by Sylvia Plath, “Homo Will Not Inherit,” by Mark Doty, and “Crystals,” by Thylias Moss. In Hugo’s book, read “Ci Vediamo.” You might call this “tough subject” day.
Monday, November 26. For today, please read “Fork” and “Watch Repair” by Charles Simic. In Padgett’s book, please read “List Poem,” which contains a poem by surrealist André Breton. How does surrealism in poetry work? For today, bring in an ordinary object from your abode. It should not be a weapon. It should be fairly small. It should be something appropriate for mixed company. It should not be perishable. Some kind of ordinary solid object. Writing in class.
Wednesday, November 28. Poem due, with copies. Larger groups.
Friday, November 30. Group work, continued.
Monday, December 3. For today, choose one poem from the Norton that a) we have not read for class and that b) you especially like. Discuss the portfolio, which should include approximately 8 revised poems and a brief (1-2 pages, word-processed, double-spaced) statement about how your poetry has developed this term.
Wednesday, December 5. Bring a revised poem, please (original plus one copy). Review for test..
Friday, December 7. Test.
Monday, December 10. In Padgett’s book, please read the entries for Lune, Pantoum, Cinquain, Ritual Poem, Senryu, and Epistle.
Wednesday, December 12. Bring a draft of a lune, pantoum, cinquain, ritual poem, senryu, or epistle. Field trip.
Portfolios due Wednesday, December 19, at my office by 2:00 p.m. Simply put the poems and the brief (1-2 pages) statement in a plain manila folder.