MODERNmain

ENG LISH 660: 002	Modernist Women Poets: Mina Loy, Marianne Moore, Lorine Niedecker
SPRING	05 / SUSAN TICHY / THURSDAYS 7:20-10:00 / EAST BUILDING 134
GEO RGE MAS ON UNI VER SITY		Mina Loy: English-born, but a nomad, the prototypical “New Woman,” a sexually liberated Futurist poet & painter, a key figure in New York Dada, and an early admirer of Gertrude Stein: when she sailed from Italy to New York in 1915 she confided to a friend that the only poet in New York who scared her was Marianne Moore. Marianne Moore: a sexual non-participant, suffragette, Presbyterian, poet, essayist, editor & translator, baseball fan, friend of H.D., Williams, Eliot, & Stevens, & of nearly every other famous name of her generation, admired by Bishop, Ashbery, Auden...and Niedecker: she lived with her mother until the latter’s death. Both were deeply involved with the cultural and artistic revolutions of their time. Both were self-conscious creators of a witty, daring modern style and of an explicitly female poetics. Both shared technical and aesthetic problems with visual artists as often as with other poets. Lorine Niedecker: a generation younger than Loy & Moore, a working class woman in rural Wisconsin, writing technically innovative poetry out of a folk base: though briefly part of Louis Zukofsky’s New York Ojectivist circle, she otherwise lived in a self-imposed isolation from literary life. All three have suffered from partial, flawed, or entirely absent publication of their poems. For these and other reasons all three present a body of work that is impossible to stabilize into a set of final, authoritative texts. All three denied from time to time that what they wrote was poetry at all. All three are now in print, in all their textual chaos and glory, and we will read them.
		Required Books Marianne Moore: The Poems of Marianne Moore. Viking, 2003. 0-670-03198< style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0);"> Lorine Niedecker: Collected Works. University of California Press, 2002. 0-520-22434-5 Mina Loy. Lost Lunar Baedeker. Farrar Straus, 1997. 0374525072 Additional required readings will be available as photocopies. You will also be required to read and/or photocopy materials at the Johnson Center Reserve Desk. Recommended Books Mina Loy: Woman and Poet. Maeera Shreiber, ed. National Poetry Foundation, 1998. 0943373433 Lorine Niedecker: Woman and Poet. Jenny Penberthy, ed. National Poetry Foundation, 1996. 0-943373-39-5 Marianne Moore: Complete Prose. Penguin, 1986. 0-14-009436-9 Adele Heller and Lois Rudnick: 1915: The Cultural Moment. Rutgers University Press, 1991. 0-8135-721-4 Unless you have a good working knowledge of cultural conditions & cultural changes between 1900 & 1920, I recommend you read the first five sections of this book before the semester begins. It's fairly light reading.. Requirements For each poet, a short paper and an annotated anthology of ten poems. Each anthology 10% of the grade. Each paper 15% of the grade. Presentations on assigned or self-assigned readings. 15% of the grade. Joyous participation in class discussion. 10% of the grade. Policies 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. Absences will adversely affect your participation grade. No late work accepted. Exceptions may be made, at my discretion, in cases of severe illness or genuine emergency. Documentation may be required. Business trips, vacations, computer problems, general disorganization, 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 conferences always welcome. I'm almost always glad to see you, but dropping in during office hours won't guarantee I'll be able to talk with you, as I may have a meeting or a conference with another student.