ENGLISH 644: WRITING SEMINAR—POETRY (Fall 2009)
Instructor: Richard Terrill
Phone: 5500
Office: AH 212C
Hours: T 2-3; W 1-3; Th 11-12, + by appt.
Email: richard.terrill@mnsu.edu
TEXTS
Twitchell, Chase, and Robin Behn.
The Practice of Poetry
Addonizio, Kim.
Ordinary Genius
Olson, Christina.
Before I Came Home Naked (not yet
released)
Ratzlaff, Keith.
Then
A Thousand Crows
COURSE OBJECTIVE
We will practice the art and craft of writing poetry from early drafts
through revision, workshop, and more revision.
We will critique each other’s work in a fair and thorough manner.
(In carrying out these tasks, we will meet several of the
competencies for the MFA in creative writing, namely: 1) the creation and
revision of new writing 2) intensive grasp of theory and techniques of
poetry writing 3) broad grasp of other literature or English-language
issues.)
This class is open to graduate students in the MFA program only.
Others may be welcome if there is room in the class and upon
submitting to the instructor a sample of poems of suitable quality.
CLASS REQUIREMENTS
To earn an "A" or "B" you should do all of the following:
1. Turn in, without missing your deadlines, at least 1000 words of weekly writing through the first third of the semester, followed by one poem per week in the middle third, and a portfolio in the last weeks of the term. Submitting a poem to the workshop suggests that you've taken it as far as you can on your own. No first drafts please during this stage of the semester. You shouldn't submit material you've had workshopped before unless there has been substantial revision.
2. Turn in to its author
a helpful and thorough critique of each poem that comes before the workshop
on the night that we discuss that poem.
Critiques should be prepared before class begins.
This critique may consist of marginal comments and often a brief end
comment.
3. Don't miss class.
Please show up on time.
4. Participate regularly in
class discussion.
5. Do the assigned reading on time.
If you don't meet the above requirements, the appropriate grade is "B" or
lower. I reserve the right to
differentiate between and "A" and a "B" based on the above criteria.
WRITERS, of course, are not allowed to speak during the group's critique
unless a misprint or error is causing problems, or they feel the group is
beating a dead horse.
READERS: You owe the writer a
complete and thorough critique based on an intelligent reading.
While this doesn't in my view justify personal attacks (or glowing
praise of the writer rather than the writing), neither are you doing anyone
any good by saying simply "Thanks for sharing" or "Gee, I liked/hated all of
it." In class, you can disagree
with anyone at any time, but don’t argue at length or for the sake of
arguing.
MY THEORY OF CRITIQUING A POEM:
I like first to ask
myself, “What is this student (or friend or colleague) trying to do?”
It helps me to know the student’s other work to make this judgment.
The next thing I
might ask myself is, “Can this be done?” and even “Is it worth doing?”
I’ll try to think of other
poets who have written similar poems that could serve as a model for
this student’s work (and perhaps as a model for my reading of it).
Then I ask myself,
“What suggestions can I make to help this student make a better poem of the
poem that he or she wants to write?”
This could be anything from changing a line or a word, to keeping
only a line or a word and making another attempt at the whole poem, to just
moving on to something else. My
purpose is not to get the student to write like me (though naturally I have
my biases).
I’m also interested in the student’s writing process.
In other words, my critique might sometimes be directed more at the
next poem this student is going to write than at this one.
I also like it if the student
is given some options of how to proceed with revision or with the
writing of other poems—advice which the student can, of course, choose to
ignore.
Some of my
suggestions may not be “mainstream” criticism, but rather a hunch or or my
personal bias; if so, I will identify them as such, as well as try to give
what I think to be the “standard” suggestion.
Finally, I reserve the right to change my mind based on what the rest of the group thinks. This is the sign of a good discussion.
SYLLABUS
9/1, 9/8, 9/15,
9/22. Turn in each week multiple
copies of at least 1000 words of “poetic material” based on exercises in
Ordinary Genius and
Practice of Poetry. Try
the suggested exercises for the week, then move on to others of your own
choosing (or design). The
material you submit will probably not be first drafts, but
lines/stanzas/drafts culled from the most interesting material you generated
from your week of exercises. You
should begin to shape at this material into something that resembles poetry,
if it didn’t come out that way to begin with.
In order to get 1000 words worthy of submitting, my assumption is
you’ll need to write at least twice that much over at least four days.
Submit the “poetic material” for class consideration in the following
form:
(title, page
number, name of exercise)
Genius
35, American Sentences
Practice
80 In the Waiting Room.
10/6 Read Then, A Thousand Crows
10/6, 10/13, 10/20, 10/27, 11/3: Turn in multiple copies of a poem for workshop.
11/17 Read Before I Came Home Naked
11/17 or 11/24 Turn in multiple copies of a five poem portfolio (including at least one new poem and at least one revision) for fifty minutes of class consideration.
BEGINNING OF A SAMPLE SUBMISSION OF “POETIC MATERIAL”
Genius
p. 33 American Sentences
If your bucket leaks,
don’t dally like an apple
enjoying the view.
Because a light south
wind is kindest in these parts,
we set off for home.
It will rain a lot
between this moment
and the time we’ll all
be dead.
Do you mind if I smoke,
or do you mind if I
don’t mind
that you do?
Groucho: “No train will
be sold after the magazines leave the depot.”
The scent of lake water,
bluegills on a stringer
—all summer we prayed.
A natural death is the
only one possible, strictly speaking.
Your
letter arrived today without a stamp,
without an envelope.
Like night clapped
around our ears,
we hear darkness
whenever we take rest.
At forty seven, Samuel
Barber figured out how to get paid (or get laid?)
Because loss is a card
game, you need to cut before anyone deals.
Don’t paste faces of old
lovers over the jacks and queens in the deck.
She murmurs, unsteady,
because her past is something to look backward to
It rains a lot here,
especially on rainy days; then the sun comes out.
Genius
Page 35, borrowing first lines (and writing in five beat lines)
Bent double, like old
beggars under sacks
the bones of my body
give way to night.
The tingling migrates
from toes to shins
and my vision pixiliates
to the tiny dots
on old wireservice
photos. There’s Nixon
looking in a pumpkin,
Lucky Lindy on the courthouse steps.
The fitness instructor,
supple as a taut hammock,
takes us through her
tropes. I’m like that with
language
leading a group in a
darkened room, mats spread each way.
They’re not used to this
kind of rigor, easy for me.
We bend to pain and back
again.
Beyond all this, the
wish to be alone,
knowing that in the
lyric resides repose,
the breath in and out of
pain in a jar.
Let’s hear just a bit of
Copland, one cut
of Coltrane.
Gentlemen, start your banners.
[borrowed first lines & write in iambic
pentameter]
Come to me in the
silence of the night
Find me in the darkness
of the hallway
or try, feeling you way
through many airs.
The house was quiet and
the world was calm.
The rain had ended and
the porch had dried.
My dog had made his
rounds about the roomn
settled back in the spot
he’d risen from.
the plants were growing,
violins unstuck
from speakers mounted on
the walls.
All that was missing was
a severed head
maybe an unsent letter
from the dead.
How to Live (my own exercise: write the
“opposite” of a poem, in this case, a poem of mine)
I’m never lost in a
crowd, but the crowd is lost on me.
the night always ends
come morning,
the earth a thin
darkness
saturated with
certaintly, garrulous, a cacacophny
always standing on
chairs and riding no hands
without much healthy to
eat.
hardly catholic, which
used to mean accepting and universal
the green roots of the
cityscape don’t show
independence day fires
in the parking lots of the big supermarkets
Random?
Open to all?