| ENGLISH
397 :001 |
POETRY WORKSHOP Monday 4:30-7:10 ~ Robinson A-245 SUSAN
TICHY / SPRING 2003
Office:
Robinson A-431
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| 397 Main | Schedule,
Weeks 1-3
Week 1: Jan 27: Introduction Week 2: Feb 3: Images, Writing & Knowing Week 3: Feb 10: Metaphors & Similes, Writing About Family Abbreviations used:
Week 2: Feb 3: Images, Writing & Knowing Reading: PC: Writing & Knowing
Poems in MAP: Images:
Browse through as many of these poems as you can, then go back and read about 10 of them closely. Choose poems that use different kinds of images (images of different things, but also some literal & some metaphoric, some realistic and some fantastical). Choose some short poems or poems made of short fragments, where images comprise most of the text, with leaps of white space or silence between them, and some poems in which images form part of a story, an argument, or an extended description. Choose poems from different decades. Make some notes on how the images are used, how connections among them are either spelled out or implied but not said. Notice, too, which senses are employed or called up and look for synesthesia, which you may look up in a dictionary, in your textbook from Introduction to Creative Writing, or on the web. Use a comparable process in any week with a long list of poems to read. Writing: 2 poems generated from PC p.28-29 or p.92-93 Begin 3 notebook projects, due in your first portfolio:
We'll begin e-mail distribution of poems next week, when enrollment has stabilized. Bring to class: Choose 1 of your 2 poems & bring copies for your small group & a copy for me In Class we'll discuss images & define some
terms, workshop in small groups.
Week 3: Feb 10: Metaphors & Similes, Writing about Family Reading PC: The Family
Poems in MAP: Poems about family:
Metaphoric Portrait
Metaphors for Relationships:
Other Metaphoric Poems:
Objects in a Room:
Two poems of the self then & now:
As in last week's reading, read quickly through as many poems, and as great a variety of poems, as you can, then go back and read about ten of them more closely. As you read this set of poems, note three things about metaphors. First note how they are made. Note whether the metaphor is created by a noun, a verb, or some other part of speech, by an appositive phrase, or perhaps just by juxtaposing two images together. Try to find examples of each. Next, note how they are used in the ovarall structure of the poem. For example, does one metaphor structure the whole poem (perhaps with related metaphors deployed to a unified effect)? or does metaphor occur locally within a poem that is structured by narrative or a speaking voice or some other means? Where the metaphor is "local", note whether it is there to describe something, to convey emotion or a state of mind, or to amuse. Another way to get at this quesion is to note how metaphor relates to tone. Is it playful and hyperbolic? decorative? Or is it dramatic, allusive, emotional? How essential is metaphor to the poem's idea? And third, consider whether the metaphor(s) take part in an archetypal metaphor such as time is a river, life is a journey, a lifetime is a year, death is a reaper, a lifetime is a day, death is sleep, life is toil and death is rest, the unconscious mind is darkness, insight or epiphany is light, nature is innocent and human life "fallen," and so forth. You may have to work out this question before you can decide how essential metaphor is to the poem's overall structure. General ideas like the ones I've listed may not be directly expressed in a poem, but smaller, more specific metaphors may depend on these archetypes for their meaning. Writing: Metaphoric Portrait developed from in-class free-write
last week
Poets in Group 1, send one of your poems from this
week or last week to class list by noon Sunday.
You need not write comments for members of your small group each time you receive their poems, but keep in mind that in the second half of the course most of your workshop time will be in small groups. Workshop will go more smoothly and prove more valuable if you have been reading each other’s poems and gaining familiarity through the first half of the course.Bring to class Poets in Group 3, bring a copy of one of your poems from this week or last week to hand in to me. All: Print the poems you receive from classmates, read them & make notes for discussion. In Class we'll discuss metaphor & simile, then workshop poems from Group 1.
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