|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
STONECOAST MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING UNIVERSITY OF SOUTERN MAINE SELECTED SAMPLE POETRY PRESENTATIONS
Pat Budd, Katie Chilton, Annie Finch and James Siegel Finding Form: Nourishing The Formal Potential Of Poems (Faculty-Student Panel) Many recent free-verse poems hide "ghosts of meter," shadow stanzas, and other hints of form. What happens when a poet brings these hidden forms into the light and develops them during the process of revision? This panel showcases the work of three student poets who will talk about the process of revising a poem to develop its formal potential. Forms discussed will include the sonnet, ballad, and blank verse. Required Reading: Paul Fussell, Poetic Meter and Poetic Form Suggested Reading: Alfred Corn, The Poem's Heartbeat Annie Finch and Kathrine Varnes, Eds. An Exaltation of Forms Lewis Turco, The New Book of Forms Melanie Drane Meeting in the Shadow World: The Shadow Presence of Classical Japanese and Chinese Poets in Contemporary American Poetry Throughout the twentieth century, American poets stepped off the road of traditional poetic structures, increasingly drawn to an inner shadow world--the volatile, shape-shifting twilight of the subconscious. In the process, they discovered allies in classical Chinese and Japanese poets, who, well over a millennium before Freud and Jung, utilized symbols from nature to represent the wilderness of the human mind. From the impact of Ernest Fenellosa's translations of Li Po's Chinese poems and Japanese noh plays on his literary executor, Ezra Pound, to contemporary poets such as James Wright, Robert Bly, W.S. Merwin, Gary Snyder, and Allen Ginsburg, exposure to Chinese and Japanese poetry contributed to what one American poet has called "an extension of the boundaries of American poetic practices." This seminar will discuss specific examples of this phenomenon (both in form and thematic content) in the poetry of James Wright, Jane Hirshfield, and Li-Young Lee. Suggested Reading: Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani, The Ink Dark Moon, Vintage, 1990. The poem “Persimmons” in Lee, Li-Young, Rose, BOA Editions Ltd., 1986. The poems “Twilights,” “Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry Ohio” and “A Blessing” in Wright, James, The Branch Will Not Break , Wesleyan University Press, 1963. Annie Finch, Richard Hoffman, Charles Martin Revisiting the Villanelle: Faculty Panel
Because the villanelle uses two rhyming refrains and only two rhymes, it has a kind of sonic integrity that, in the hands of a skilled poet, has few equals among fixed forms. Among the most versatile of poetic forms, it has been used to express humor, outrage, loneliness, melancholy, joy, and more.
This panel brings together three practitioners of the form to discuss its beauty, power, and haunting quality, as well as the challenges in writing a successful villanelle. We will discuss a number of villanelles, demonstrating the form’s range and potential, and we will point out the ways that what might at first glance seem a daunting and unforgiving blueprint can, with practice, become a liberating and nearly magical formula for conveying a broad range of ideas and emotions.
Required Reading: W.H. Auden, “Alone” ___, “ If I could Tell You” ___, “ Villanelle” Elizabeth Bishop, "One Art" Hayden Carruth, "Saturday at the Border" Steven Cramer, “Villanelle After a Burial” Wililiam Empson, “Missing Dates” ___, “ It is the Pain, It is the Pain Endures” Marilyn Hacker, “Villanelle for D.G.B.” ___, “ Ruptured Friendships, or, The High Cost of Keys” ___, “Villanelle: Late Summer” Donald Justice, “Villanelle at Sundown” Sylvia Plath, "Mad Girl's Love Song" Theodore Roethke, "The Waking" E.A. Robinson, "The House on the Hill" Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle" Oscar Wilde, “Theocritus” Suggested Reading: Marilyn Nelson, "Daughters, 1900" Kathleen Aguero, “Medusa” Richard Hugo, "The Freaks at Spurgin Field Road" Barbara L. Greenberg, “Lines from a Caribbean Balcony” Anthony Hecht, “Prospects” Carolyn Kizer, “On a Line from Valery” Michael Ryan, “Milk the Mouse” Charles Martin, “On the Interpretation of Dreams” ____, “Death Will Do Nothing” Richard Hoffman, “Messengers” ____, “Villanelle” ____, “The Sloth” Annie Finch, "Pearl" ____, “My Baby Fell Apart” ____, “Flower That Grows Me”
Terrance Hayes Jeffrey Harrison
Seamus Heaney: “Blackberry-Picking,” “Perch” (secondary: “Death of a Naturalist," etc.) Elizabeth Bishop: “The Bight,” “The Moose,” “North Haven” (secondary: “The Fish,” “At the Fishhouses,” “Cape Breton,” “Santarem”) James Schuyler: “February,” “Dec. 18, 1974,” “Buried at Springs” (secondary: other Schuyler) John Clare: his sonnets (probably secondary) Gray Jacobik On the Sublime The essential claim of the sublime is that we can, in feeling and in speech, transcend the human. For Longinus, the human was the domain of art or techne; the sublime, just that which eludes the art—the soul of the rhetorical body—that ecstasy or transport that results from “an eminence and excellence in language.” This seminar will explore various notions of the sublime (as discussed by Longius, Thomas Weiskel and Allen Grossman, among others) and attempt to trace its manifestation in poems from Coleridge, Stevens, Milosz, Grossman, Hass, and Cording. We will conclude by asking how the sublime may be achieved (or at least aspired to) in poems we undertake to write. Lisa Jarnot Basic Elements This seminar will focus on the basic building blocks of the poem, beginning with vowels, consonants, and syllable clusters, and evolving toward an evaluation of the larger metrical structures inherent in poetry. Working from Louis Zukofsky's idea that poetry can be evaluated within the range of “Lower level speech, upper level music”, we'll explore ways to locate the musicality of different kinds of poetry. From classic beats ofiambs, trochees, anapests, and dactyls, to the "field poetics" of contemporary experimental schools of writing, we'll look at the range of possibilities for the line. In addition to making use of The New Book of Form, we'll become familiar with poems that show diverse relations to musicality and rhythm. Required Reading: Lewis Turco, The New Book of Forms Emily Dickinson, "poem 1760" Carolyn Matthews Beyond Literacy: A Portrait of a Middle School Poetry Project If Rome wasn't built in a day, how do you increase middle school literacy skills in six weeks? What is the capacity of poetry to create informed and reflective students? Success, curiosity, originality, relationship, and energy = SCORE, a model for student engagement and motivation. “Honey in the Rock,” a six week-middle school poetry project, was based on this model and became a springboard for collaborations between teachers, parents, and the community. Specific collaborations and the resulting benefits will be discussed. Examples of using poetry to promote understanding and awareness of cultural and social issues will be provided. Recommended Reading: Baron Wormser and David Cappella, “A Surge of Language” Handouts: poems used in activities and samples of student poetry. Shara McCallum The Persona in Poetry Beyond its resonance for psychology (particularly psychoanalysis), the “persona” appears as a concept in contemporary poetry in at least two ways. The first use of this notion occurs in what’s commonly referred to as the persona poem, a poem in the dramatic mode that adopts the voice of figures or of people who are clearly not the poet. The second use of persona presents itself in lyric and narrative poetry, both – this concerns the idea that a first-person speaker cannot be assumed to be the poet, as well as the belief that any first-person speaker in a poem, even when the material is autobiographical, adopts a “mask” in order to speak. In this seminar, we’ll consider poems that work primarily in the dramatic mode, in which the poet is adopting a persona. In doing so, we’ll consider how personas function in each case and will speculate upon the relationship between the persona and poet in order to translate a theory of persona into practice in our own work. The seminar will be conducted with emphasis on discussion from all present. As such, it will be helpful for participants to have read from the works listed below ahead of time and to come with observations, questions, and comments to share. I will also provide handouts during the seminar. Suggested Readings: “Leda” from The Book of Light by Lucille Clifton, Excerpts from The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck, Excerpts from “Brutal Imagination” in the book of the same name by Cornelius Eady Wes McNair The Line in Free Verse Composition Though free verse has dispensed with rhyme and meter, it has its own formal requirements. In this workshop we’ll consider what some of those requirements are, focusing especially on the line. In a series of model poems by contemporary poets we’ll discuss which subject matter works best for the long line, and which for the short line; techniques of creating an interplay between the line and the sentence; how to construct sentences that enforce that interplay; making the space around the poem articulate through line breaks; and using lines and stanzas to make a poem look like what is says—or how it thinks. Along the way, we’ll try exercises designed to increase the skills of line-making. Recommended Reading: Wesley McNair, Mapping the Heart: Reflections on Place and Poetry (Carnegie Mellon), particularly the essays “Advice for Beginning Poets”, “Boothed”, and “On Poets, Poets Teaching, and Poetry”. Carol Moldaw Ekphrastic Poetry In this seminar we will explore issues regarding ekphrastic poetry. Although ekphrasis has come to mean exclusively descriptions of works of art, it originally meant “expository speech which vividly brings the subject before our eyes,” and included descriptions of people, action, places, seasons, and festivals. We will look at some historical examples of ekphrastic verse, as well as mid-twentieth century classics and contemporary poems. Is the drive to write about paintings a desire to imitate, describe, translate, interpret, praise? How dependent on the art work that inspired it can a poem be and still be considered successful? And what happens when the poem goes outside the frame of the painting? We will discuss how the nature of visual art and poetry differ, where they intersect, and what value poetry can add as well as what it gains from the association.
Required Reading: Text: John Frederick Nims & David Mason, Eds. Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry, 4th edition. Note: Although we will just be using the plates and poems between pages 296 & 297, this is an excellent reference work to have on hand. Be familiar with all plates and accompanying poems. Essay: Wallace Stevens, “The Relations between Poetry and Painting,” in The Necessary Angel; also included in J.D. McClatchy, ed., Poets on Painters Poems: Homer, The Iliad, ch. 18, ll 483-603 (Achilles Shield description). Note: Preferably Robert Fitzgerald translation John Keats, “Ode On A Grecian Urn.” Wallace Stevens, “The Man With the Blue Guitar” W. C. Williams, “Pictures from Brueghel” W.H. Auden, “The Shield of Achilles” “Musée des Beaux Artes” Octavio Paz, “Objects & Apparitions,” trans. Elizabeth Bishop (in Bishops’ Complete Poems) Elizabeth Bishop, “Poem” John Ashberry, “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” Frank O’Hara, “Why I Am Not a Painter” “My Favorite Painting at the Metropolitan” Carol Moldaw The Art of the Short Poetry Review We all bemoan the lack of attention poetry receives in the wider culture, and decry its isolation as an art form. Who better than poets to initiate the conversation? At least as important as bringing poetry into greater public view, reviewing books of poetry is a way to engage in a dialogue with the works one is reading: it can help us read with greater discernment, as we are pushed to articulate the poetic context being worked in, and what is gold, what dross, in a given book. In this seminar we will look at reviews by the distinguished practitioners Randall Jarrell and Louise Bogan, as well as a few examples by contemporary poet/reviewers. With Jarrell and Bogan as models, we will concentrate on what can be accomplished in a 300-750 word review, but also discuss some nuts and bolts: Should reviewers describe, or prescribe? Do reviews need to be accolades? Is there a place for the negative review? How does one negotiate the intimate world of poetry? The last portion of the seminar will be devoted to putting into practice what we have learned: each participant should bring a volume of poetry he/she has read at least twice and remains engaged by, and be prepared to draft a review. Required Reading: I will have available, through e-mail, a packet of short reviews by Randall Jarrell, Louise Bogan, Miriam Sagan, myself, and others. These should be read and thought about beforehand. Also required: bring one volume (no collecteds or selecteds) by any living poet that you have read and re-read with sustained interest and would like to write about. Suggested Reading: Bring samples of (short, 300-750 word) reviews that strike you as stylistically delightful, wonderfully informative or provocative, woefully biased, or unforgivably crabby, to share. Dennis Nurkse
The Floating World Dennis Nurkse Our American tradition in poetry differs from the European in its openness to other sources of poetic knowledge, including the Asian. American poetry has an interest in speed, economy, negative space, and the resonance of the image that owes much to haiku. This seminar will examine the key concepts of haiku in search of an alternate understanding of poetic structure, based on voice, not syllable counting. We'll look at "pivot words", mood, intuitive structure and Basho's essay "Learn From The Pine." Students will write their own haiku--we'll investigate ways to incorporate hard-edged contemporary material and rescue the form from the association with the decorative that betrays haiku in the West. We'll examine how the vision implicit in haiku shapes our idea of the contemporary. Required Reading: Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku Students should also read W.S. Merwin's Asian Figures and haiku translations by Sam Hamill. Handouts will also be provided. Dennis Nurkse Shark And Shoe: An Ersatz Look at Non-Western Forms Louis Simpson called North American poetry ‘a shark that can digest a shoe.’ Our young, pluralistic, voracious cultural tradition is radically open to a range of influences (sometimes crudely appropriated, often wildly distorted in translation). In this seminar, we’ll look at haiku, renga, tonka, and the ghazal, not so much for authenticity or integrity of original form as for the alternate world-views and techniques they offer-–alternate ideas of what a poem is. What might African-American poets find in haiku? Why would a feminist use the ghazal? Expect extensive hand-outs and class improvisation. We’ll discuss translation issues–but if you are fluent in Urdu and classical Japanese, expect professorial ignorance.
Required Reading: Robert Hass, editor, The Essential Haiku Also please read at least five ghazals by Adrienne Rich (see the ‘homage to Ghalib’ section of Leaflets or The Fact of a Door Frame).
A Field of Poems? In this seminar, we’ll look at the sequence, “the characteristic modern form” according to M.L. Rosenthal and Sally Gall, as a form which allows for a variety of voices, modes of discourse, shifts in time, within a lyrical structure. The sequence is often a poetic response to a particular intersection of forces, a nexus of pressures within and without, where the chaotic is uneasily contained. If you have a collection of scraps, of fragments, of poems begun, abandoned, and picked up again, all originating out of a particular note or knot of material, the chances are that this is, at least incipiently, a sequence. If you are wondering how to put a poetry collection together so that the book works as a ‘whole’, you are, at least implicitly, thinking of the book as a sequence, a lyrical structure itself. We’ll look at particular examples. Handouts will be provided. Crystal Williams Writing, Rewriting & Re-Creating the Family The Family is perhaps one of the richest, most nebulous and traversed terrains we find in contemporary poetry. But there are real challenges which arise when writing about the family: to whom and for whom are we writing? How do we write poems that are "honest" without offending the very people we're writing about? Should we care if we offend the people about whom we are writing? How does identity get formed by writing about the family? How can we write expansive family-based poems, poems that speak to the common human experience and not just our own familial experience? I hope to spend the bulk of our time discussing student questions related to writing, rewriting and recreating the family. Required Reading: Lucille Clifton, Good Woman Louise Gluck, Ararat Galway Kinnell, Imperfect Thirst Alan Shapiro, Song & Dance Louise Gluck, "The Idea of Courage," and "Against Sincerity" Both essays published in Proofs and Theories: Essays on Poetry
Suggested Reading: Other Books Wherein "Family" is treated well and/or in interesting ways: David Mura, Angels for the Burning Marie Howe, What the Living Do Patrick Phillips, Chattahoochee Sharon Olds, The Father Rita Dove, Mother Love Reetika Vazirani, White Elephants Li Young Lee, Rose Beth Ann Fennelly, Tender Hooks Sonia Sanchez, Does Your House Have Lions Wang Ping, Of Flesh & Spirit
|
|
Related Links |
|
