Collage,
Collaboration & Bookish
Beasts
SPECIAL TOPICS IN
WRITING / ENGL 619:003 / ENGL 497:001 / SPRING 2008 / SUSAN TICHY /
GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY |
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key to what follows: What to read lists what all should read, with primary sources listed first. If there's a gap in the list, undergrads should feel free to stop at that point, but grads should soldier on. Anything under Further is optional. Grads should expect to delve into "further" readings several times in the semester, following your personal interests. A perpetual problem in this class is that many of you won't have seen work in these modes before, so you need models, you need to see the range. And yet, if I pile on the reading there's no time to write. So, I've assigned no more than I think the market will bear, but will also bring further examples to class, including books from the Reserve desk, books and pamphlets in my collection, and so forth. You should also bring in what you find. For weeks when I have organized this show-and-tell into a coherent set of materials and an activity to go with it, you'll see it on the syllabus as Bookshelf. Other weeks, you'll just have a chance to browse and make notes. In some cases, you might even want to snap pictures with your cell phone or camera. Week 1: Jan 24 Intro to the course, in-class writing & we'll make a wee book. Bring paper and scissors if you can. Week 2: Jan 31 Thanks to the infinite wisdom of AWP, we will not meet this week. Please complete these readings, which will introduce you to many of the forms and questions we will work with this semester. Take notes and accumulate questions. What to read Thomas A. Clark: Poetry & the Space Beyond Marjorie Perloff: Afterimages: Revolution of the (Visible) Word A Book of the Book: Keith Smith: The Book as Physical Object p54 A Book of the Book: Michael Davidson: The Material Page 71 A Book of the Book: Karl Young: Notation and the Art of Reading 25 What to do Familiarize yourself with the course web site & linked sites. Work on poem(s) for next week Recommended exercise--perhaps on its own, perhaps as a revision step on one of the other poems-- Write two versions of a short
collaged poem, using the same raw materials in each. Make one version a
rough collage, in which seams and gaps are emphasized and highly
evident, despite some overarching unity to the piece. Make the other
version smooth, perhaps naturalizing all your material into a speaking
voice. You needn't erase all traces of the gaps, but you should tilt
the balance toward coherence. For a model of the latter, perhaps
Marianne Moore's "New York."
Other exercises related to collage: brownse
the Writing Operations page; and, on Imitation/Homage page, see Boolean
Poetry, Cut-Up Dialogue; Week 3: Feb 7 Collage as quotation, as found text, as pulled text, as method of composition. What to write: Make Your Own System: a poem created by a procedure of your own invention, directions here. Bring to class: Add text to the hidden book you made on the first night (or make a new one) & bring it in for show-&-tell. Workshop: your poems, either one you wrote for today or a revised version of the one you wrote in class on the first night. Discussion: Using texts from the reading, and perhaps also yours, we'll discuss the difference b/t working at the level of the word and working at the level of the phrase, subjective vs. objective methods, relation between source(s) and new composition, etc. If time, we'll start a discussion of voice in collage poems. Bookshelf: In small groups, examine small books & make note of their form, materials, binding, relation of book form to content. What to Read The Order of Things: browse this text, but see especially pages 105, 150-151, 156-160, & the note on 196 From Practice 2: Renée Angle: from Salamandra Salamandra From Practice 2: Tony Lopez: Only More So From Practice 2: Danika Myers: from My Risky Undertaking Tichy: Intro notes on collage, here Adrian Lurssen: I'm Not Hollywood, on revising a collage poem, here Tichy: Notes on Leonard Diepeveen's work on "quoting poems," here * * * * * * * * * * * * Further A small selection of contemporary works in collage: Betsy Andrews: New Jersey Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Dictée Martha Collins: Blue Front Carolyn Forche: The Angel of History C.S. Giscombe: Giscome Road Susan Howe: Singularities (collage & visual) Lisa Jarnot: Some Other Kind of Mission (collage & erasure & visual) Harryette Mullen: Muse & Drudge or Recyclopedia Mark Nowak: Shut Up Shut Down Myung Mi Kim: Under Flag, Commons Czeslaw Milosz: From the Rising of the Sun, & others in Collected Poems Claudia Rankine: Don't Let Me Be Lonely Joan Retallack: Afterimages (collage & erasure) Gary Snyder: Myths & Texts Peter Streckfus: The Organum, in The Cuckoo (collage & abecedarian) Rosmarie Waldrop: Blindsight Rosmarie Waldrop: A Key Into the Language of America Marjorie Perloff: The Invention of Collage, in her The Futurist Moment (highly recommended) Tichy: an intro to FLARF with links to further reading, here Alan Golding: Drawing with Words: Susan Howe's Visual Poetics (essay), in We Who Love to Be Astonished, ed. Laura Hinton and Cynthia Hogue. A selection of major Modernist works in collage: Marianne Moore: An Octapus, Marriage, New York, etc. in Complete Poems or The Poems of... T.S. Eliot: The Waste Land Ezra Pound: The Cantos William Carlos Williams: Paterson Mina Loy: Songs for Johannes, in Last Lunar Baedeker Melvin B. Tolson : Harlem Gallery Week 4: Feb 14 Erasure What to write: an erasure text Workshop: your erasure or collage poems, + in-class writing: sound chains & credos Discussion: Erasure texts: is it "erasure as collage" or "erasure vs collage"? We'll also continue discussion of voice. What to read Wave Books Erasure page, for an introduction and simple way to begin, here Tom Phillips: excerpts from A Humument, here & here A Book of the Book: Tom Phillips: from The Heart of A Humument, p375 A Book of the Book: Tom Phillips: Notes on A Humument, p423 Ronald Johnson: excerpt from Radi Os Jen Bervin: excerpt from Nets Joan Retallack: excerpt from Afterimages, from Afterimages Lisa Jarnot: excerpt from Some Other Kind of Mission Practice 1: Janet Holmes: three poems Jill Magi: Threads (start looking at it now; we'll come back to it when we talk about altered books) N. Katherine Hayles: A Humument as Technotext, on electronic reserve PASSWORD: CREATIVE Dan Beachy-Quick: The Speaking Ear, here (A review of Radi Os, highly recommended for its discussion of erasure as a way of reading, erasure texts as books written by reading.) * * * * * * * * * * * * Further Mary Ruefle: Little White Shadow (like A Humument, it's made from a novel), at the Reserve Desk Tom Phillips: A Humument, at the Reserve Desk Jen Bervin: Nets (from Shakespeare's sonnets) Jen Bervin's web page, with a lot more cool stuff, here Ronald Johnson: Radi Os (from Milton's Paradise Lost) A Book of the Book: readings on Blake's illuminated books Week 5: Feb 21 Words: textual & visual methods to break them, change them, hear them, list them. What to write: a grid, correction, permutation, or...? And a credo or similar listing structure that works with sound Discussion: poems from the reading, ear/eye/mind elements in each form, meditation without discursiveness. Workshop your poems, if we have time, + we'll make a pop-up book. So bring materials & tools--paper, images if you want to use them, your artist's knife & cutting mat, pens, glue, etc. What to read The Order of Things: lists 29, 53-87, 106, 119, 169; to/from 110; sound 23-26, 164-167; all the above 101-112. Credo poems: distributed in class (with permission of their publisher) Alec Finlay: Grid poems, Corrections. Start here, then click You Are Invited>open the pop-up. Click D for grid poems, or find the correction poem in the bottom row. Ian Hamilton Finlay, A Visual Primer: (Reserve Desk) Ian Hamilton Finlay, Little Sparta (Reserve Desk) Tichy: camouflage grid, credos Tichy: notes on Cecilia Vicuña & Edwin Morgan's Palabrarmas/Wurdwappinschaw, here Practice 1: Joan Wilcox, from Tangle * * * * * * * * * * * * Further Cecilia Vicuña & Edwin Morgan's Palabrarmas/Wurdwappinschaw Katz: Libro Quemado Ian Hamilton Finlay: Unnatural Pebbles Week 6: Feb 28 Visual & concrete poetry. What to write: a visual poem (circle, concrete...) And a visual text modeled on Drucker. You can write an original text, or take a piece of existing prose and remake it as a visual essay. A page or two will do. Workshop your poems: grid, broken word, sound, permutation, credo, or visual. We'll also talk about how these forms can morph into small book forms. In-class writing: collaborative three word poems. Discussion poems & forms from the reading What to read Tichy: intro to Visual Poetry, here The Order of Things: 87-100, 101-112 Alec Finlay: Circle poems. Start here, then click You Are Invited>open the pop-up>N for Circle poems. Also, from the home page, click animations and find animated circle poems. In the bookshop, find a book of circle poems, Turning Toward Living. Colin Sackett: colinsacket.co.uk Essayes Johanna Drucker: Linguistic Authority and the Visual Text (brief essay), in Figuring the Word: Essays on Books, Writing, and Visual Poetry. Granary Books, 1998. A Book of the Book: Marjorie Perloff: from The Futurist Moment A Book of the Book: Blaise Cendrars & Sonia Delaunay: La Prose du Transiberian Reinhold Grimm: Poems and/as Pictures, on electronic reserve. This is a long reading, though much of it is taken up by the images. Better images of some of the oldest stuff Grimm discusses may be seen in Ubu's Historical section, under the title "Early Visual Poetry," here * * * * * * * * * * * * Further Emmett Williams: Anthology of Concrete Poetry. At the Reserve Desk. Eugene Wildman: Anthology of Concretism. At the Reserve Desk. Mary Ann Solt: Concrete Poetry: A World View, way out of print but available on Ubu, here http://www.ubu.com/papers/solt/index.html Beyond Concrete: Johanna Drucker: Wor(l)d Made Flesh (Artist's book) at the Reserve Desk Joahana Drucker: Visual Performance of the Poetic Text (essay), in Close Listening: Poetry and the Performed Word, ed. Charles Bernstein. Book is at the Reserve Desk. The essay is a highly recommended overview of the modes of visual poetry. Week 7: March 6 Continue from last week. What to read: In last week's handout on Procedural Poetry, read about John Cage's use of mesostics as a method for "writing through" a text. On alecfinlay.com look at Mesostic Herbarium and Mesostic Laboratorium, both part of You Are Invited. Please also read the Commentaries at the back of The Order of Being (starting on p 177). What to write: Whatever you like. Workshop: your visual poems + visual texts modeled on Drucker. Bring copies for all. We will also write linked chains of mesostics. Discussion: Carry on with questions from last week, with applications to your poems. Introduce E-mail Exquisite Corpse Collaborations. Week 8: March 13: Spring Break, no class Week 9: March 20: First portfolio due. Words & Images, Emblem & Beyond What to read: Look at whatever Hamish Fulton has on his web site this week. Look at Colin Sackett's Black Bob, here. At the Reserve Desk, browse Jessie Sheeler's Little Sparta. Choose
two photographs in which words appear. They may be on any object, and
in any setting at Little Sparta. Make a copy (or make detailed notes)
and answer these questions about the relationship of words to image.
Are the words a caption (that is, do they name what is seen)? Are the
words an epigram? How do the words interact with/refer to the object or
material on which they appear? How do the words interact with/refer to
the landscape or garden features that also appear in the photo? Do the
words allude to other texts, images, artists, or historical
events? Would you describe this work as an object of or for meditation?
Would you describe this work as an emblem, or related to emblem? If so,
you probably can identify the "picture" and the the inscription. Where
do you find, or imagine, the commentary?
Workshop: Each of you will present one piece from your portfolio and one image from Little Sparta. Bookshelf: In pairs, examine and describe works combining text and image. Present to the whole. Week 10: March 27 Constrained writing: abecedarian, acrostic, mesostic, analytic dictionary, et. al. What to write: An emblem. And start work with constrained writing. Try several things and see what clicks for you. You can bring in several experiments in different veins, or choose one form and develop it into a substantial work or series of small works. Workshop: your poems & emblems. We will discuss the concept of constrained writing, as well as the particulars of different procedures, as we talk about your poems. What to read This week it's just a lot of poems--so put in the time to find & read them. The Order of Things: 37-52, 120 Constrained writing exercises, here Alec Finlay: Alecfinlay.com Mesostic Herbarium Colin Sackett: colinsacket.co.uk Rereader Peter Jay Shippy: from "Alphaville" http://42opus.com/poetry/abecedarian Carolyn Forché: "On Earth," in Blue Hour, at the Reserve Desk (abecedarian) Peter Streckfus: "The Organum," in The Cuckoo, at the Reserve Desk (acrostic collage) Adrian Lurssen: Angola (analytic dictionary, with additional constraints) Susan Tichy & Adrian Lurssen: Tea mesostics Joan Retallack: Afterimages (erasure by constrained methods) Christian Bok: excerpt from Euonia * * * * * * * * * * * * Further Christian Bök: Euonia Ed Allen: 67 Mixed Messages (acrostic sonnets) Alec Finlay & others: Mesostic Herbarium Alec Finlay & others: Mesostic Laborium Posh / Shop Saturday, March 29: workshop in papermaking, printing, and book arts, at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center. Stay tuned for more information. |