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This
course provides an introduction to five 20th/21st
century poets (Gertrude Stein, Mina Loy, Sonia Sanchez, Susan Howe, and
Harryette Mullen) as part of an inquiry into the meaning and nature of
“feminist,”
“avant-garde,” and “feminist avant-garde.” We will follow a path laid
down by Elisabeth
Frost’s The Feminist Avant-Garde in
American Poetry, which examines the avant-garde as a necessary
response to
historical and aesthetic circumstances, including male avant-garde
traditions.
Book List
Online sellers discount some of these titles. Used copies for
as little as half the cover price should be available for most. http://www.bookfinder.com
Elisabeth
Frost. The Feminist Avant-Garde in
American
Poetry.
University
of Iowa Press, 2003 0-87745-929-0
$19.95
Gertrude Stein. Tender
Buttons.
Dover Publications; New Ed, 1997 0486298973
$4.95
Also available on line:
Mina Loy. Lost Lunar Baedeker.
Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1996.
0374525072 $22.00
Sonia Sanchez. Does Your House Have
Lions.
Beacon Press, 1998. 0807068314
$14.00
Susan Howe. Singularities.
Wesleyan University Press,
1990. 0819511943
$13.95
Harryette Mullen. Recyclopedia.
Graywolf
Press, 2006. 1555974562
$15.00
Requirements &
Policies
- Written assignments include
- two annotated anthologies
- a final paper, preceded by a proposal and annotated
bibliography
- five writing prompts for poems or creative prose in
response to the work of our poets
- optional portfolio of poems (or creative prose) written
in response to our poets
- If you do not choose to turn in a
portfolio of poems, the word-count for your anthologies should come in
at the high end of the assigned range. Your grade will be calculated as
- First anthology 15%
- Second anthology 15%
- Proposal & bibliography 10%
- Final paper, 15-20pp 30%
- Prepared class discussions 15%
- Participation in discussion & in oral reading 15%
- If you choose to
turn in a portfolio of poems, the word-count for your
anthologies may come in at the low end of the assigned range. Your
grade will be calculated as
- First anthology 10%
- Second anthology 10%
- Proposal & bibliography 10%
- Final paper 10-15pp 25%
- Portfolio of poems 15%
- Prepared class discussions 15%
- Participation in discussion & in oral reading 15%
- Attendance is expected at the full length of all class
meetings. If illness requires you to be absent, please let me know
ahead of class time. If you choose to miss class for another reason,
turn in your work ahead of time and arrange to find out from a
classmate what you missed. More than one absence for reasons other than
illness or
emergency will adversely affect your
participation grade.
- No late work accepted.
Exceptions may be made, at my
discretion, in cases of illness or genuine emergency.
Documentation may be required. Business trips, vacations, family
occasions, procrastination, etc., are not
emergencies. You are
strongly urged to complete your work before the last possible moment.
Missed presentations may not be made up.
- Appointments
and drop-ins always welcome. To reach my office, walk through Robinson
A-455 and find my door (455A) in the corner. Once inside, you
will meet a very large tree.
In lieu of short papers, you will
create two annotated
anthologies. One must be for Stein or Loy; the other may be for
any poet in the course. Design your selection as one of the following.
- an introduction
to this poet, such as might be used in a course on a more general topic
(e.g. Modernism, Contemporary American Poetry, African American
Literature Survey, Writing About Literature, 20th Century Women's
Literature);
- an introduction to one
particular aspect of the poetry, such as might be used in a course on a
more focused topic (e.g. satire, gender, race, poetic form, poetry
& visual arts, poetry and jazz);
- a selection of poems by
which to explore a particular aspect of the work in depth, without
reference to teachability or accessibility (e.g., any of the above
topics, or, more narrowly, cubism, portraiture, questions of
representation, collage, signifying, etymology);
- poems you might
concentrate on if writing about this poet for your MFA exam -- i.e.
poems you consider key to an understanding of this poet and
illustrative of her most significant qualities, including formal
qualities.
Include an introduction of
1200-1700 words in which you define
the purpose of your anthology and
explain why each poem was chosen. Depending on your selection, you may
or may not want to explain why certain other poems were NOT included.
This might be called for if you skipped major poems or obvious choices
for your topic. Your
introduction should reflect your most mature thinking about the poet
and
demonstrate your ability to apply critical
concepts and terminology, as well as biographical and aesthetic
perception to the
reading of her poems. An introduction based
solely on your close-reading skills, without reference to critical
concepts or historical circumstances, is not adequate for this project.
- Your introduction may be composed as an essay, or as
multiple short entries on poems or groups of poems. Choosing the latter
option does not reduce the expectation for sophisticated commentary.
- Number your pages and include a table of contents. Be sure
your name and contact info is at the top of the first page.
- If you are designing
your anthology for use with high school students or some specialized
audience (e.g. women at a homeless shelter) take note: do not write an
introduction aimed at this audience. No matter whom your imagined course is designed for,
your introduction
must assume an audience of your peers and your instructor.
You do not need to
physically reproduce the poems, but you may wish to. This
might be a good idea if you will want these poems in hand for your MFA
exam, or if you want to use marginalia, scansion, diagramming, and so
forth to present part of your commentary. If you are working with short
poems, I recommend that you type the poems out, one by one. You
will learn more from this than by days of thinking.
Perhaps the best way to
understand what I am looking for, and what I
consider excellent, is to read some past examples. Here are some
outstanding papers and anthologies from a course on Loy, Marianne
Moore, & Lorine Niedecker. Papers, Modernist Women Poets
Proposal
& Bibliography for Final Paper
Your proposal should summarize the ideas you are bringing to bear on
formation of your paper's thesis. As these ideas should include those
gleaned from secondary reading, you must attach an annotated
bibliography.
If you are taking the shorter paper option, you should reference at
least three sources beyond the primary
texts; for the longer option, you may wish to use more. These numbers
are highly dependent on your topic, so please see me if you have
questions. Briefly summarize the argument made or information provided
by each
source. In your proposal, indicate how you expect to use each source,
how it bears on your thinking.
Use MLA style. Here are some links to help you. The latter two offer
specific models for on-line sources, including such things as journal
articles you found archived in a database.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/09/
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/cgos2006/basic.html
Final Paper
Your
paper should reflect your most mature thinking about the poet(s)
and
demonstrate your ability to apply critical
concepts and terminology, as well as biographical and aesthetic
perceptions. A
paper based
solely on your close-reading skills, without reference to critical
concepts or historical circumstances, will not be accepted.
More specifically, your final paper should do one of two things--
- apply in a new
way or to new materials some specific mode of analysis gleaned
from our readings (or from further readings you undertake); this could
be a specific application of more general ideas or an extension of an
argument into some new phase of a poet's work
- make a new
argument, something someone could disgree with; this could be a
wholly new idea, a comparative discussion that breaks new ground, a
refutation of a bonehead critic, or a new synthesis and application of
ideas already in circulation
Some things not to do--
- don't set out to prove the obvious (e.g. It is too late to
be the one who claims that Stein's work relates to that of the early
Cubist painters: you need a specific idea or argument about her
relation to Cubism, grounded in particular ideas or practices in her
work or theirs.)
- don't set out to merely "explore" an idea: you may do that
at the outset, but by the time you finish the paper you'll need a
specific thesis which can be stated in a sentence or two
- don't just point to a phenomenon in the poems and think you
have made an argument (e.g. Don't write a paper that begins by
asserting that so-and-so's work contains many images of horses, rounds
up all available horses as examples, and concludes that, yep, there are
plenty of horses in those poems. If you want to write about the horses,
rounding them up is only the first step: now you need a thesis, an
idea, an argument about those horses.)
- don't present an explication or close reading of poems, sans critical frameworks; if you
are making a comparison between one of our poets and someone/something
else, you will still need some conceptual frameworks, definitions,
etc., to keep your discussion in dialogue with others
Optional Portfolio
of Poems
7-10 poems, accompanied by a
statement (750-1000 words) placing your poems in relation to the work
of one or more poets we have read this semester. The statement should
reflect your
most mature thinking about the poet
and
demonstrate your ability to integrate and act on critical
concepts and aesthetic
perceptions. "Act
on" could include anything from imitate to satirize to reinterpret for
our present cultural moment. It may not include "ignore." That is--your
poems and statement must be in dialogue with the poet(s) you reference
and with ideas of feminism and the/an avant-garde. An introduction
along the lines of "I read so-and-so's poems and got this idea" would
not be adequate, nor would poems with no apparent relationship to
the course poets and the course ideas.
Grading Criteria
An “A” paper
- Has a specific, complex and/or striking
thesis, developed w/o digression thru the paper; demonstrates an
ability to understand, synthesize, and apply ideas from the
reading, including the criticism, in a complex and nuanced argument
grounded in the primary texts.
- Prose is a step up
from merely “clear”: it is adequate to the expression of complex ideas
and relationships, and has few surface errors.
- Uses literary terms
accurately and addresses poetic form and/or genre in a meaningful way,
connecting form or genre to meaning and integrating formal insights
into the general discussion of the poem.
- Citations are
complete and in MLA format.
A
“B” paper
- Has a specific thesis, thesis generally
developed through the course of the paper, consistently good
interpretation of text, references the critical ideas of the
course and demonstrates a good basic understanding of the issues and
ideas we have been discussing. Argument is accurate and plausible but
may lack nuance and complexity in the application of ideas to the poems.
- Prose is clear and competent, with no more
than minor mechanical problems.
- Uses literary terms
accurately and discusses form; treatment of form or genre may be
somewhat elementary or not well integrated with the rest of the
argument.
- Citations are in
MLA format with few errors or omissions.
A “C” paper has failed
to reach the standards outlined above. It may discuss the poems without
reference to the critical ideas of the course. It may record personal
responses
and general attitudes of the student, rather than closely discussing
the poems.
It may show an unacceptable level of error in grammar, construction,
usage, and
spelling. It may be excessively redundant. It may show an ignorance of
literary
terms. It may lack citations or rely on poor sources.
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