Natasha Sajé,
Ph.D.
Foster Hall 405 Office Phone: (801) 832-2376
email:nsaje@westminstercollege.edu
Home phone: 474-3579
Office Hours: Mondays,
E322: Poetry Workshop (Fall 2002)
Thursdays,
Objectives:
This course will help you
learn the building blocks of writing poetry. Topics covered include: diction, line, figurative language, image,
voice, dialogue, shape, rhyme, form, meter, and narrative. The writing
assignments emphasize verbal experimentation, often through imitation, and are
meant to expand your repertoire of literary techniques as well as to make you
aware of your own preferences. Because this is foremost a class in process
rather than product, attendance and participation are very important. In addition to workmanlike attention to the
craft of poetry, I hope we can pay some attention to the "big
picture"—why we read and write poetry.
Some of the readings provide answers, though I hope you will find your
own. Finally, by reading the work of visiting writers, and having the
opportunity to talk with them, you will gain some insights into the writing
life.
You should spend a couple of hours on each weekly assignment--these will form the main part of your grade, along with readings of both professional and class work (and reading quizzes if necessary), attendance at poetry readings, and class participation.
Required texts:
Stephen Adams, Poetic
Designs (Broadview)
William Stafford, Writing
the Australian Crawl
Robin Becker, The Horsefair
plus handouts of photocopied material
Requirements:
1) Attendance, participation in discussion, and careful reading. More than two absences preclude an A, more than six and you will fail the course. Call me if you must miss a class. 25% of grade. If you are not doing the reading, I may institute quizzes. Important: for each day with assigned reading, write a discussion question on a piece of paper and hand it in at the beginning of class. I will look for thoughtfulness and the depth and breadth of your reading and give these back to you for safekeeping in your portfolio that I will review at the end of the course. In addition, you are required to attend at all three poetry readings on our campus. These are listed in the syllabus. Write a one paragraph response to each of the live poetry readings and include them in your final portfolio.
2) Ten poems, typed, single-spaced, applying the concept of that week’s reading. Please date and number these (1-10 ). Make copies for everyone in the class. Assignments and models are included in the syllabus, but feel free to modify assignments to make them more challenging for yourself: ambition counts! I think "failures" are as interesting as successes, so don't hesitate to submit something you're not happy with; it will give us a chance to figure out why. 50% of grade
3) Leading the
discussion/finding an activity for one of the
4) Revisions: I expect you to
revise at least four of your poems based on feedback from me and the class.
“Cosmetic” revisions wherein you have changed only minor things do not count. These
are due in the final portfolio. You are
welcome to come see me anytime for more feedback. 20% of grade
Grades: Are based on the
effort you apply to learning the week's lesson, doing the reading, and helping
classmates see the direction of their work. "A" represents excellence
in some aspect of the coursework, "B" above average work,
"C" average work, "D" below average work, and "F"
failing. "A" work not only fulfills the assignment but does so in a
fresh and mature way. (It teaches me something!) "C" work follows the
assignment but does so either conventionally or superficially. (I've heard it
before.) A few times during the semester
we'll have a conference to discuss your work and grade but you may come see me
anytime for the same purpose.
COLLECT ALL WRITING TO BE
HANDED IN AT THE END OF THE CLASS AS A PORTFOLIO
Let’s talk about how we’ll
manage the exchange of poems and keeping track of class comments. In the past,
some classes have chosen to exchange poems by email early in the week so that we
can be more prepared to discuss them; others have preferred to just bring them
in on the night of the workshop. I leave it up to you, and we can switch
methods if one isn’t working out. In addition, some workshops have chosen to
appoint a particular person as “scribe” for that evening’s comments. This also
is up to you.
August 29
Introductions
What Is a Poem? What is
Revision?
In class
exercise. Distribution
of Codrescu and
Handouts of draft and final
versions of Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art”
Rhetorical modes and poetry: song,
story, description, argument
5 September
Read Stafford, pages 3-20
Read Adams, pages 149-198
Form in Free Verse
Poem #1 due: anything you
like! Suggestion: look at Andrei Codrescu’s “Remembrance of My Forgotten
Skinniness” (p. 176) as a model and write about something you were but are no
longer. Or use Robin Becker’s “Dog-God” as a model for writing about something
that happened in your childhood (p.35).
12 September
Read Stafford, pages 21-45
Read Codrescu poems (handout)
Andrei Codrescu visits our
class
He reads poetry in Jewett,
BOOK FESTIVAL AT
19 September
Read Stafford, pages 46-60
Read Adams, pages 1-36 Meter
& Rhythm (In class: exercise on scansion.)
Read Robert Hass, “Listening
and Making” (handout)
Poem #2 due: an argument:
Take a famous saying or cliché and write a poem arguing its
opposite. Read Robin Becker’s poem, “Against Silence” (p.79)
as a model. OR write an ode, an argument in praise of something. For
examples, see Robin Becker’s “In Praise of the Basset Hound” (p.34); Andrei
Codrescu’s “Ode to Laryngitis” (p.156); Lucille Clifton’s “poem in praise of
menstruation.”
In class: lesson on diction &
etymology (handout with sample poems: Paisley Rekdal’s
“Stupid,” Heather Mc Hugh’s “Etymological Dirge.”).
26 September
Read Adams, pages 37-69
Beyond Iambic Pentameter
Read Stafford, pages 60-81
Exercise due: Write 10 lines
of blank verse. I don’t expect a poem here; we’ll just be looking at is the
meter.
Poem #3 due: write a poem conscious of diction. Suggestion
a): incorporate etymology into your poem. Suggestion b): get 50 index cards. On
ten of them, write a word of Anglo-Saxon origin you don’t know. On the next
ten, write Latinate or Greek words. On the next ten, write a word whose sound
intrigues you. On the next ten, write a verb. On the last ten, write a noun.
This is your “lexicon” for your poem. You must use 20 of the words on your
cards in the poem.
3 October
Revise your 10 lines of blank
verse based on our workshop.
Read Stafford, pages 85-113
Read Adams, pages 72-103 Stanza and Form
Poem #4 due: A poem directed
to a specific person or thing. Andrei Codrescu “To My Heart” (p.115); Robin
Becker’s “Late Words for My Sister” (p.38); Lucille Clifton’s “to my last
period”
10 October
Read
Poem #5 due: write a sonnet, a sestina, a pantoum, or a villanelle.
See Robin Becker’s “Sonnet to
the Imagination” (p.62) and her “Sad Sestina” (p.56); Elizabeth Bishop’s “One
Art” (I’ll have other handouts, too.)
17 October
Lucille Clifton visits our
class.
Read her poems (handout) and
come prepared with questions.
19 October SATURDAY Option
24 October
Read
Poem #6 due: Write a poem
that uses tropes in a significant way. See Stanley Plumly’s
“The Marriage in the Trees” or “Suicides as Souls of Birds” (handouts) for
examples. Also Andrei Codrescu’s “At Home” (p.161) and
“Seeing out of the Sub” (p. 252) and Lucille Clifton’s “white lady” and “rust.”
31 October
Poem #7 due: Dramatic
Monologue. Write a poem in the voice of a famous person, real or imaginary. You
could have your speaker address someone else famous: i.e. Elvis Presley
speaking to Madonna or Abraham Lincoln speaking to Hilary Clinton. Read Robin
Becker’s “The Horsefair” and “The Triumph of
Charlotte Salomon” and Andrei Codrescu’s “Night of a Faun” (p.172) as examples.
7 November
Read Adams, Form in Free
Verse, pages 150-198 (we’ve already read this chapter but I’d like you to
revisit it in light of what you’ve learned in two months).
Poem#8 due: a poem
with a particularly inventive form; i.e. a shaped poem, concrete poem, or sound
poem or some other visual or aural aspect that distinguishes it. You could also write a poem in fragments,
like
14 November
Read Becker, The Horsefair
(we’ve already read many of the individual poems, so now I’d like you to
consider the book as a whole—how it is put together, etc.)
Robin Becker visits our class. Bring questions.
Becker reads, Nunemaker,
21 November
Poem #9 due: poem in an
appropriated form (see handout: letter, diary, dialogue, advertisement, list, etc.)
Happy Thanksgiving November
28
5 December: Last Day of Class
Poem #10 due: Anything you
like! Suggestions: Write a poem that attempts to define some concept or word
via examples or story.
FINAL EXAM:
Portfolios
(ten poems & discussion questions plus at least four revisions) due.
Write an overview of your
work this semester, 1 single spaced page, what you learned, what your strengths
and weaknesses are, etc. Let’s discuss having a class dinner, at my house or
elsewhere, this evening.