ENGLISH 444/544: ADVANCED POETRY WRITING –Spring 2009
Instructor: Richard Terrill Phone: 5500
Office: AH 212C Hours: T 2-4, W 3-4, Th 11-12, and by appointment
Email: richard.terrill@mnsu.edu
COURSE OBJECTIVE
Students will advance their skills as writers of poems, and as readers of other students’ poems and of published poems to be viewed as models. Students will thereby increase their appreciation for contemporary poetry. They will also gain knowledge and experience that will be transferable to writing in other genres.
PREREQUISITES
for English 444: English 344 or 341
for English 544: graduate standing
TEXTS
The Practice of Poetry. Robin Behn and Chase Twitchell (PofP)
Rose. Li-Young Lee (L)
Bellocq’s Ophelia. Natasha Trethewey (T)
Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry. J.D. McClatchy (M)
ATTENDANCE
Every student is expected to attend every class; classes cannot be made up. The class is small, so we need you here every day. After two unexcused absences, your final grade drops 1/3 of a letter for each class hour of class missed. Excessive excused absences (for illness or family emergency only) can also be harmful to your grade.
ASSIGNMENTS
Writers: You will be asked to turn in writing exercises or completed poems about once per week. Only polished poems ready for critique will be eligible for workshop consideration in class. On these occasions, since your poem is part of everyone’s reading assignment for the day, missing your workshop deadline is considered the equivalent of an unexcused absence.
Poems submitted to workshop should be at least fourteen lines long (a line usually having at least three stressed syllables). If you write a short poem (or a poem with short lines), turn in two poems on the day that.
All poems must be typed, single-spaced. Never submit your only copy of a poem. Don't submit a first draft of a poem; work on several drafts over several different days before you turn it in. If your poem is in response to a specific assignment, indicate that on the page. No late assignments.
Readers: There will be announced and unannounced quizzes on reading assignments (from the texts and from workshop poems). Read all poems carefully several times. For workshop, provide marginal comments and an end comment to be completed before coming to class
Everyone will also attend at least two events (poetry reading or craft talk) in the Good Thunder Reading Series, or the Writers Bloc series (monthly, Wednesdays at 9 pm, stay at least one hour). If conflicts prevent you from attending any of these events, see me in advance. If you’re interested in writing poems, I would expect you would attend most of these events, and will offer extra credit if you do so.
JOURNAL/NOTEBOOK/IMAGE BOOK
Students should keep a journal or notebook of drafts of poems and in-class exercises. This work can be handwritten or on your computer or a combination of the two. Refer to The Practice of Poetry to give yourself regular assignments and exercises. You may also want to carry a small pocket “image book” in which to write down observations or phrases or images that come to you at inopportune moments.
I will probably not look at any of this material, but if you don’t follow some kind of notebook or journal process, it’s unlikely you’ll do very well in the class.
PORTFOLIOS
At least twice during the term, including on the final exam date, you will be asked to turn in a portfolio of revisions of poems you wrote for class.
FINAL GRADE
Your final grade will be determined according to the following formula:
Your poems submitted to the workshop and collected in your portfolios
= at least 51%
Your critiques of poems in the workshop, attendance, quizzes,
= no more than 49%
I will use shaded grading in the class (+ and -).
SYLLABUS (part one)
1/13 Introduction and writing exercises
1/15 Read “In My Mother’s Drawer” by Terrill at http://www.poems.com/archive, “Dolor” by Roethke at http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dolor/. M290 (Hammock), 257, 310, 225,“. PofP 37. In class we’ll write list poems.
1/20 Email me Poem #1: a List Poem. Read M432, 435, 538, 530, 533, 415, 459. L32. “The Fish” (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-fish/). PofP 35, 141. Note: I’d like to begin class today immediately after President Obama’s inaugural address and the poem to be read by Elizabeth Alexander.
1/22 Continue discussing reading assigned on Tuesday. Bring multiple copies of Poem #1. Bring an object to describe in class (see p 35 PofP for guidelines).
1/27 Workshop poem #1. Email me Poem #2: a poem about an object.
1/29 Read short essays by Hugo and Stafford, and three poems by Stafford (hand outs).
Good Thunder Reading Series—MSU Alumni. Craft talk: 3 pm. CSU Auditorium. Reading: 7:30 pm CSU 253.
2/3 Bring multiple copies of Poem #2: an object poem. Read T3, 34, 47, M33, 38, 202 (Mule), 571, PofP 231. Bring several photos or paintings to write about in class. The library has many good collections. Browse and check out.
2/5 Workshop poem #2.
2/10 Email me Poem #3: a painting/photo poem. Read M34, 314 (both),547, PofP 80,91. L15, 17.
2/12 no class: AWP National Conference
2/17 Email me Poem #4: a narrative poem. Bring multiple copies of Poem #3.
Read Bellocq’s Ophelia. Please bring notes for your contribution to the discussion. Everyone will be expected to participate fully. Remember that our goal is not to workshop the poems, but to see what we can learn from them that we can use in our own writing. Some sources for your notes: 1) Anything you think is important or interesting. 2) Anything you don't understand (or anything you think could be interpreted in more than one way). 3) Anything you have strong feelings about. 4) Connections you perceive between lines, images, words, and so on.
2/19 Workshop poem #3. Continue discussing Bellocq’s Ophelia.
Good Thunder Reading Series--Julianna Baggott. Craft talk: 3 pm. CSU Auditorium. Reading: 7:30 pm CSU 253.
2/24 Bring multiple copies of Poem #4. Finish workshop on Poem#3.
2/26 Workshop poem #4
3/3 Bring in multiple copies Poem #5: a poem in response to Tretheway’s Bellocq’s Ophelia . In class writing exercise: Bring to class a book of narrative prose that is rich in language, image, and descriptive detail. Art history or art appreciation books work well, as do travel books, autobiography or memoir, nature books, collections of letters, nineteenth century novels.
3/5 Workshop Poem #5 TURN IN FIRST PORTFOLIO, consisting of revisions of Poems 1-4. Include earlier drafts of the poems, preferably those on which I’ve commented.
3/10, 3/12 no class. spring break
Good Thunder Reading Series—Oliver de la Paz. Craft talk: 3/17, 3 pm. CSU Auditorium. Reading: 3/19 7:30 pm CSU 253. (Note: Oliver de la Paz is running a free writer’s workshop this week Tuesday through Friday at 9 am, CSU202. You don’t have to commit to go everyday in order to attend. Highly recommended.)
FOUR MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT POETRY WRITING
1. A poem means whatever a reader wants it to mean. The meaning depends on whatever a reader brings to it or sees in it.
Correction: You probably wouldn't say that about a novel, play, or film--“Hamlet is a play about kinky sex…cuz I say it is!”--It’s not true about a poem either. People will disagree about art, but poetry is no more subjective than any other genre. We can, if we like, interpret poems based on the evidence in the poem. But we probably won't do a lot of interpretation in this class, because of the following...
2. A poet is most concerned about what his or her poem means.
Not true, at least not immediately true. A poet is more concerned about "how" the poem means, more concerned about devices and properties of language than the meaning of a poem. You don't write poems to make a point or illustrate a theme. As Richard Hugo said, “If you want to communicate, use the telephone.”
3. We can't say what works or doesn't work in a poem.
--Wrong again. We can say, and we WILL say what we think works or doesn’t work in a poem and we’ll do so by close, honest reading of what’s on the page, not primarily on our own prejudices. We might not always be right about what works and what doesn't, but we'll try to be. At the level of achievement we're at, what I will try to provide you is for the most part mainstream criticism--what any good teacher or editor would say. I have nothing to gain by getting you to write in a particular “style” or mode. I don’t get paid extra if you write like me….
4. The primary purpose of writing a poem is to reveal the poet's innermost thoughts and feelings.
Almost never true. While poets, like any writers, have a certain style or tone, they tend to privilege their passion for language over whatever their other passions might be. It’s true that often our experiences and our emotions are good sources for poems. But they’re not the only sources.
SOURCES FOR POEMS
1. imagination
2. observation
3. experience
4. language, and other poems
5. ?
SUGGESTIONS FOR EFFECTIVE WRITING
Use the following to decode our comments on your poems
#1. SHOWING is usually better than TELLING.
#2. CONCRETE language is usually better than ABSTRACT language.
#3. FRESH language is usually better than CLICHE (if you've heard it before, don't write it).
#4. Write in complete sentences and punctuate normally unless there’s a good reason not to.
#5. “Poetry is ordinary language used in extraordinary ways.” W.H. Auden
#6. Good writing relies on nouns and verbs, not adjectives and adverbs.
#7. “The greatest poverty is not to live in a physical world.” Wallace Stevens
#8. “If you want to communicate, use the telephone.” Richard Hugo
#9. “Poetry is a distillation.” Gwendolyn Brooks
#10. “Poetry should be at least as well written as prose.” Ezra Pound
#11. Don’t withhold information.
#12. “I don’t know what I’m going to say…then I find out what I’m going to say.” William Stafford
#13. Amateur poets borrow; professional poets steal. T.S. Eliot
#14. “Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking.” Paul Valery
#15. “When the poem stops, the reader should go through the window.” Paul Valery
#16. Writing is revision.
#17. “A poem is never finished, but abandoned in despair.” W.H. Auden
#18. “No ideas but in things.” William Carlos Williams
#19 Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. Albert Einstein
The last rule: there are no rules.