Poetry Syllabus 4/11-4/15
Poetry Writing Workshop
Jane Belton
Syllabus April 2011
Monday 4/11
In Class: Exercise 2 (My mother’s /father’s/ grandparent’s kitchen) due. Share. Discuss choices made: details, language, form, approach. Discuss assigned poems.
Assignment: Read and annotate the assigned poems: Carolyn Forché’s “Memory of Elena,” Yusef Komunyakaa’s “My Father’s Love Letters,” Audre Lorde’s “Hanging Fire” and Li-Young Lee’s “The Hour and What is Dead.”
Tuesday 4/12 – No Class
Wednesday 4/13
In Class: Discuss poems: Accessing memory, working from specificity to create larger meaning; how images build meaning; structures: circular, linear, etc.
Assignment: Complete Exercise 3: “5 Easy Pieces”: Think of a person who is important or significant to you on some level. Jot down images, sensory details, interactions, snippets of dialogue, and places that come to mind and are most vivid for you in association with this person. Inspired by this initial work, write a poem about this person using the following structure: 1) Describe the person’s hands. 2) Describe something he/she is doing with his/her hands. 3) Use a metaphor to say something about the place/setting. 4) Mention what you would want to ask this person (or what you do, in fact, ask). 5) The person looks up or toward you, sees you there, gives an answer that suggests he or she only understands part of what you asked. The main goal of this exercise is to try to create a clear picture or story through specific fragments and details. Feel free to play with or add to the provided structure to make it your own.
Thursday 4/14
In Class: Exercise 3 due. Read and discuss haiku. Juxtapositions, what is said/not said. Write your own haiku inspired by images/photographs (This is Exercise 4a)
Homework: Complete Exercise 4b: Find a photograph or image that evokes a memory of a particular place, person, or moment in time. Write at least two haiku inspired by the image. Work on revising exercises 1 & 2 according to feedback you have received.
Friday 4/15
In Class: Share haiku. Begin reading Elizabeth Bishop’s “Sestina,” Alberto Rios’s “Nani” and “Sestina for the Q Train”.
Assignment: Continue reading and annotating Elizabeth Bishop’s “Sestina,” Alberto Rios’s “Nani” and “Sestina for the Q Train”. Select a poem or moment(s) in one of the poems that speaks to you on some level. In a 1-2 page focused freewrite (Focused freewrite # 2), respond to that moment: What pulled you in or intrigued you most? What are the moments of “luminosity,” as Linda Gregg calls it in her essay “The Art of Finding”? What are the details that “have a special energy and vibrancy”? What aspects of form, technique, or style are most interesting to you? Why?