01.21.11: UPDATE

READING: The Poet's Companion, pages 104-112; Best American Poetry, pages 30-38.

WRITING: The Poet's Companion, writing prompts 4 and 5.

01.21.11: UPDATE

While we think and write through the implementation of metaphors and similes within the poems we read and write for this course, it may be helpful to consider the poetry of John Donne and his use of the conceit as a poetic device within his poems. A conceit, for all intents and purposes, is an extended or sustained metaphor that attempts "to compare very unlike things." We can find specific examples of the conceit in Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" and "The Flea." In the former of these two works, notice the manner in which the poet employs the image of a compass. On the one hand, the instrument operates at a very literal level; on the other hand, of course, it represents or symbolizes something else. How does Donne's use of metaphor compare to Olds' use of metaphor in "Fear Drowned" on pages 95 and 96 in The Poet's Companion? How are they alike? How are they different? Such questions should provide us with a bit more insight with regard to how poets use these poetic tools.

01.19.11: UPDATE

READING: The Poet's Companion, pages 94-101; Best American Poetry (2008), pages 20-29.

WRITING: The Poet's Companion, writing prompts 1 and 7 on pages 92 and 93.

Also, as a reminder, we will abide by the following strictures (for now) while we compose our daily writing assignments:

I. Poems are to be 8-12 lines in length.

II. Poems will not employ abstract language (i.e. words such as "love," "hate," "truth," "peace," etc.).

III. Nouns should not be modified by adjectives, unless the poem employs an adjective that normally does not describe a particular noun.

IV. Verbs should not be modified by adverbs, unless the poem employs an adverb that normally does not describe a particular verb.

III. Poems will employ proper capitalization.

IV. Poems will employ proper punctuation.

V. Poems will employ proper grammar and syntax.

VI. Poems, unless the reason for doing otherwise in the poem, will not be centered.

VII. Poems will not rhyme.

VIII. Adhere to dicta I-III from Pound's Imagist Manifesto, thinking about them critically and how they relate to your poems.

As I mentioned in class, one aspect of poetry is to undermine, explicitly, traditional use of capitalization, punctuation, grammar, syntax, and language usage. But, before we get to the point of working in contradistinction to these norms, I want you to work within these confines so as to demonstrate that you are able to do so (which is also rather important to poetry).

01.18.11: UPDATE

In a Station of the Metro
by Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

In tomorrow's class, we will be discussing the use of images in poetry, as explained by Addonizio and Laux in The Poet's Companion. But, long before these two authors co-wrote our textbook, there was a group of poets, self-described as Imagists, who championed the primacy of the image within poetic works. The movement, whose founder and central figure was Ezra Pound and whose above poem "In a Station of the Metro" most poets and poetry scholars consider to be a prime example of an Imagist poem, established three main tenets upon which their writing stemmed. They are as follows:

I. Direct treatment of the "thing," whether subjective or objective.

II. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.

III. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome.

To wit, I would like you to thoroughly consider, both in the poems we read for class and the poems you write for class, the ramifications of these tenets and how they might operate in conjunction with Addonizio and Laux's chapter on images. Likewise, you should also ask yourself how Pound's poem functions relative to writing prompt 8 on page 81 of TPC that you were to complete for tomorrow's class session.

01.14.11: UPDATE

READING: The Poet's Companion, pages 85-91; and Best American Poetry (2008), pages 9-19.

WRITING: The Poet's Companion, writing prompt 8 on page 81; in addition to the previous prompt, select only 1 of the 9 writing prompts from the following list: writing prompt 7 on page 37, writing prompts 6 and 9 on page 44, writing prompts 2 and 3 on page 53, writing prompts 1, 5, and 10 on pages 62-63, and writing prompt 4 on page 72.

01.12.11: UPDATE

READING: The Poet's Companion, 31-81.

WRITING: The Poet's Companion, writing prompt 1 on page 28; writing prompt 2-7 on pages 28-29, assigned individually in-class.