Feminist Avant-Garde Poetry : Schedule


Susan Tichy / stichy@gmu.edu / Robinson A-455A / 703/993-1191
ENGL 660:001 / S 2007 / GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY


Howe
Updates
Loy
Mullen Bibliography
Sanchez
Paper Guidelines Main Page


Week 1: Jan 23: Introduction

Week 2: Jan 30: Introduction

Reading:   

Frost: Introduction
Wittig: Extracts from the Straight Mind and Other Essays may be read here.
Stein: Tender Buttons
We won't discuss TB until next week, but start reading now: it's not a quick job! Read portions aloud. Try reading some parts very quickly.

Assignment: 

Go foraging at the Reserve Desk. Make copies of Loy’s “Anglo-Mongrels and the Rose,” & of all the Stein readings you will need next week

Assignment:

Scout the work of all five poets and start planning your semester. You will compile and annotate anthologies for two poets, one of whom must be either Stein or Loy. You will prepare and lead class discussions for at least two poets. They will not necessarily be the same two poets, since not everyone can lead a discussion for Stein or Loy.

By Monday of next week (the day before class) you must e-mail to me your preferences for poets to discuss. Please list three choices, in order of preference.

In class:

Each week, we will need volunteers to read aloud from some of the work under discussion. When it’s your turn, please practice at home and get to know the piece(s) well. You may want to make photocopies and mark them up, to help you locate stresses and pauses. This is a separate responsibility from preparing to lead discussion, but either I or the discussion leaders may ask you to read certain poems or passages. This week, everyone will read aloud, so we can hear selections from each of our poets.


Week 3: Feb 6: Stein: Tender Buttons

Reading:       

Stein: Tender Buttons
Stein: Mary Nettie, Susie Asado (handed out in class)
Frost: Chapter One
Class Handout: Summary of interpretive points of view on Tender Buttons (from Chessman)
Class Handout: Table of contents of Michael Hoffman's Critical Essays on Gertrude Stein

If you prefer to download Tender Buttons here are two sources:

Tender Buttons on Project Gutenberg. EBook #15396. Release date: 17 March 2005. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15396/15396-h/15396-h.htm

Tender Buttons on Bartleby.com http://www.bartleby.com/140/index.htm. 

Assignment: 

Choose a single poem from Tender Buttons & write at least two pages of associations based on its words and phrases. Include sound associations (rhymes, puns, rhythms) and jokes. For a model of this process, see pp 92-93 of next week’s Chessman reading.

Resources on Futurism:

F.T. Marinetti. “The Founding & Manifesto of Futurism.” The Futurist Home Page, Kim Scarborough, ed. http://www.unknown.nu/futurism/  Fifteen Futurist manifestos appear on this site, including all mentioned by Frost.

Maurizio Scudiero. "The Italian Futurist Book." Colophon. http://www.colophon.com/gallery/futurism/index.html A short, illustrated essay. You gotta see 'em to get it. You can see the cover of Blast! here, too.

Resources on Stein:

Stein recordings at Penn Audio -- no Tender Buttons, alas. http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Stein.html
Stein page at the Electronic Poetry Center:  http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/stein/  
Gertrude Stein Online  http://www.tenderbuttons.com/gsonline/index_2.html 
Stein page at the Modern American Poetry site  http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stein/stein.htm


Week 4: Feb 13: Stein: Tender Buttons

Snow day: no class


Week 5: Feb 13: Stein: Tender Buttons (rescheduled)

Reading:

Stein: Tender Buttons
Stein: Poetry & Grammar (electronic & print reserves)

Those working on Stein for the first anthology or for the paper should read an additional critical essay.

Assignment:

Create a writing prompt, for poetry or creative prose, based on TB or another Stein reading. Bring a hard copy to class, so we can talk about them, but you also must e-mail your prompt to me and to the class. Please identify the poem(s) you derived your exercise from, and explain in a few sentences how your exercise derives from principles or qualities of those poems and/or how completing this exercise provides insight into Stein.


Week 6: Feb 27: Mina Loy: Poems from Lost Lunar Baedeker

Reading:  

Conover: Introduction to Lost Lunar Baedeker & endnotes to assigned poems & prose
Loy: poems from Lost Lunar Baedeker:
Poe, Lunar Baedeker, The Effectual Marriage, Virgins Plus Curtains Minus Dots, Three Moments in Paris, Sketch of a Man on a Platform, Songs to Johannes, Parturition
Loy: prose from Lunar Baedeker:
Feminist Manifesto, Aphorisms on Futurism

DuPlessis: “Corpses of Poesy” (print reserves)

Resources on Futurism: see Week 3

Resources on Loy:

Janet Lyon & Elizabeth Majerus, eds. Mina Loy page of the Modern American Poetry Web site. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/loy/loy.htm

Mina Loy Page. Electronic Poetry Center.



Week 7: March 6: Mina Loy: Anglo-Mongrels and the Rose

Reading:

Loy: "Anglo-Mongrels and the Rose" (electronic & print reserves)
Frost: Chapter Two

Another essay, recommended for those who are writing on Loy:
Perloff, Marjorie.  "English as a Second Language: Mina Loy's
Ango-Mongrels and the Rose. In Schrieber & Tuma. 131-148. Also on Jacket Magazine web site:. http://jacketmagazine.com/05/mina-anglo.html

Assignment:

Create a writing prompt, for poetry or creative prose, based on Loy's poems. Bring a hard copy to class, so we can talk about them, but you also must e-mail your prompt to me and to the class. Please identify the poem(s) you derived your exercise from, and explain in a few sentences how your exercise derives from principles or qualities of those poems and/or how completing this exercise provides insight into Loy.



Week 8: March 13: Spring Break, no class



Week 9: March 20: Sonia Sanchez: We a BadDDDDD People & Love Poems

Assignment: First Annotated Anthology due at the start of class. Please read the Guidelines carefully.

Reading:

Sanchez: Poems from We a BadDDDD People
Sanchez: Poems from Love Poems
Frost: Chapter Three

Houston A. Baker, Jr. "Our Lady: Sonia Sanchez and the Writing of a Black Renaissance."  In Studies in Black American Literature, Volume III: Black Feminist Criticism and Critical Theory. Eds. Joe Weixlmann & Houston A. Baker, Jr. Greenwood, FL: The Penkevill Publishing Co, 1988. 169-202. (electronic & print reserves)

De Lancey, Frenzella Elaine. "Rufusing to Be Boxed In: Sonia Sanchez's Transformation of the Haiku Form." In Blackshire-Belay 21-36. (electronic & print reserves)
<>
Resources on Sanchez:

Susan Kelly: "Discipline and Craft: An Interview with Sonia Sanchez"
African American Review, Winter 2000.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2838/is_4_34/ai_70434329/pg_1

David Reich: "As Poets, As Activists: An Interview with Sonia Sanchez
Unitarian Universaist World (May/June 1999)
http://www.uuworld.org/1999/0599feat1.html

Sanchez page at Academy of American Poets
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/276

Modern American Poetry page on Black Arts Movement
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/blackarts/blackarts.htm



Week 10: March 27: Sonia Sanchez: Does Your House Have Lions?

Reading:

Sanchez: Does Your House Have Lions?

Since relevant resources on Sanchez are scarce (lots of appreciation out there, not much hard thinking) use this week's reading time to catch up on some classics of black criticism, poetics, and literary history, such as:

Stephen Henderson: "The Forms of Things Unknown" (electronic & print reserves)
This essay lays a groundwork on which most later essays on black poetics stand. Even those who differ  from Henderson in their primary interests use him as a point of departure.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. Oxford University Press, 1988. I have put Chapter 2: "The Signifying Monkey and the Language of Signifyin(g)" on electronic and print reserves. This will also be very useful background for discussing Mullen.

Assignment:

Create a writing prompt, for poetry or creative prose, based on Sanchez's poems. Bring a hard copy to class, so we can talk about them, but you also must e-mail your prompt to me and to the class. Please identify the poem(s) you derived your exercise from, and explain in a few sentences how your exercise derives from principles or qualities of those poems and/or how completing this exercise provides insight into Sanchez.


Week 11: April 3: Susan Howe: "Articulations of Sound Forms in Time"

Howe: "The Falls Fight" & "Hope Atherton's Wanderings"
Frost: Chapter Four

Resources on Howe

Cary Nelson, ed. Susan Howe Page. Modern American Poetry. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/howe/howe.htm 
The page on "Hope Atherton's Wanderings" includes part of Peter Nicholls' essay on Howe's sources.

Charles Bernstein & Al Filreis, eds. Susan Howe sound files at PennSound.
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Howe.html 
Several readings & radio broadcasts.

Extracts from Rachel Blau DuPlessis. "Whowe" may be read here.
The essay is not directly concerned with "Articulations of Sound Forms in Time," but contains several passages interesting to our discussions. DuPlessis begins with a quote from Tender Buttons and remarks on "the mark" in Stein and Howe;  she draws attention to Stein's essay "Forensics," in which she takes up the problem of "how to write" in terms also suitable to Howe; and she briefly discusses Hope Atherton in the context of other characters in Howe's poems. You can read the whole essay here: http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/howe/howe_duplessis.html 

Susan Howe Page. Electronic Poetry Center. http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/howe/

Kathleen Fraser, ed. The HOW(ever) Archives. 
http://www.how2journal.com/archive/ 

Assignment:

Choose a single poem or passage from Howe & write at least two pages of associations based on its words and phrases. Begin with sound and work through semantic entanglement, coming last to narrative or theme.


Week 12: April 10: Susan Howe: "Articulations of Sound Forms in Time"

Howe: "Taking the Forest"

Those working on Howe for the second anthology or for the paper should read an additional critical essay, or an interview, or a substantial part of My Emily Dickinson.

Assignment:

Create a writing prompt, for poetry or creative prose, based on Howe's poems. Bring a hard copy to class, so we can talk about them, but you also must e-mail your prompt to me and to the class. Please identify the poem(s) you derived your exercise from, and explain in a few sentences how your exercise derives from principles or qualities of those poems and/or how completing this exercise provides insight into Howe.

Week 13: April 17: Harryette Mullen: Trimmings

Mullen: Trimmings
Frost: Chapter Five


Week 14: April 24: Harryette Mullen: Muse & Drudge

Mullen: Muse & Drudge

Those working on Mullen for the second anthology or for the paper should read an additional critical essay, or an interview. I recommend this interview for its extensive attention to Muse & Drudge, but there are many others:

The Solo Mysterioso Blues: An Interview with Harryette Mullen
Calvin Bedient; Harryette Mullen. Callallo 19:3 (Summer 1996) 651-669.

Assignment: 2-page proposal for final paper, with annotated bibliography, due by e-mail on Monday April 30

Assignment:

Create a writing prompt, for poetry or creative prose, based on Howe's poems. Bring a hard copy to class, so we can talk about them, but you also must e-mail your prompt to me and to the class. Please identify the poem(s) you derived your exercise from, and explain in a few sentences how your exercise derives from principles or qualities of those poems and/or how completing this exercise provides insight into Mullen.

Week 15: May 1:

No new reading. We will finish our discussions, if need be.

Remember: Your 1-2 page proposal for final paper, with annotated bibliography, is due by e-mail on Monday April 30.

Assignment: Second Annotated Anthology due at the start of class. Please read the Guidelines carefully.


Exam Date: May 8

Final papers (& poems, if you choose this option) due in my mailbox in the English Department by 7:30 pm.

Please put your work in a large envelope (not loose in a folder). Put my name, your name, and your phone number and e-mail on the outside of the envelope. Ask a staff or faculty member to initial & date it (to verify when it was turned in, in case it goes astray) before you turn it in.

Do not put your work under my office door, under the English office door, or in any other strange place
.