English 619:003 / Spring 2005 / Susan Tichy / George Mason University


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CONCRETE
VISUAL
COLLAGE ««««««« Week 2 Feb 1


Material Poem: Cut-up & Collage
CVC
MAIN

 What to do before today:

Make your own system: two poems

Start an e-mail Exquisite Corpse Collage. You will work on these for several weeks, but you must start now: they take time.

Start collecting words & images for yourself or to share: use magazines, newspapers, the internet, photocopies, dictionaries.


What to read before today:

William Burroughs on cut-ups
http://www.ubu.com/papers/burroughs_gysin.html

Adrian Lurssen: "I'm Not Hollywood"
A cut-up collage poem with notes on the writing and editing process

Notes on collage in its more rational forms
Notes from Leonard Diepeveen, on "quoting poems"

Some introductory reading --
A Book of the Book:
Rothenberg: Poetics & Ethnopoetics
Davidson: The Material Page
Waldman: My Life as a Book
Borges: The Cult of Books
Class photocopies, Pack 1:
Drucker: The Visual Line (at end of pack)

Class photocopies, Pack 2:
Kuwada: Threads that Run...
Kuwada: Love Song...
Sloan: from Infiltration
Patton: from Teething on Type

Optional reading from War and Peace--
Judith Goldman: "Case Sensitive"
Kari Edwards: "Oddly Shaped Four Times"
Norma Cole: "From New Notebook"


What we'll do in class / what to bring:

Workshop: Your two "Make your own system" poems -- bring copies for your small group & for me. Be prepared to discuss differences between your two results.

Discuss: Texture, gap, juxtaposition & voice in a poem including cut-ups; writing as "moving language around;" creating absence, creating presence.

DO: Begin a pulled text round-robin. For this poem, please bring 1-2 pages of nonfiction prose from which you and others will pull text. Please don't bring poetry or fiction. One copy is enough.

MAKE: a folded book form.


For Next Week:

Draft of a poem from the round robin.
Draft of a poem from canceled text.