HW for 3/3 (MARCH!)

1. Write your Elegy or Ode.

2. Annotate one of the blog posted elegies or odes, following directions from the Assignment 4 handout.

3. Read "The Door Ajar" and "Infinitude" from The Virtues of Poetry for Monday's class.


This poem below doesn't count towards #2 above, but it is relevant to our time in the year and in the classroom! "March: An Ode" by Algernon Charles Swinburne

More examples of Elegies and Odes

1. Thomas Crawford's "Ginko Tree" is a great example of using a central image (the bus crashing into the tree).

2. Crystal Williams' "from People Close to You" is not only an elegy, but gives us a good example of white space/shaping a poem.

3. Since we just looked at sonnets, here is a "sonnet crown," in which the last line of one sonnet is the first line of the next sonnet, until 8 are linked. David Trinidad's "A Poet's Death" is a sonnet crown elegy!

4. Matthew Nienow's "Ode to the Belt Sander & This Cocobolo Sapwood" has a speaker who really expresses a great joy in work and what they get out of the crafting.

5. Tom Disch's "Ode to a Blizzard" seems relevant to our polar vortex!

6. Terrance Hayes' "Ode to Big Trend" is a great example of using a particular diction within the constraints of a poetic form.

Elegies and Odes

With both:

• What are you emphasizing about your subject? What makes your subject 'special' or strange or so very individual to you that you need to write about them?

With elegies:

• What represents this person most? Voice, dress, actions, ...???

• What are you trying to say about the death, with the death, about Death?

• Figurative language: allow description of your subject to take you to another world!

• Theodore Roethke's "Elegy for Jane"

Elegies

1. James Reiss' "The Breathers"

2. Joan Larkin's "Afterlife"

4. Jericho Brown's "Another Elegy"

4. Jimmy Santiago Baca's "Meditations on the South Valley: Part XX"

5. A.E. Housman's "To An Athlete Dying Young"

6. Mary Jo Bang's "You Were You Are An Elegy"

7. Yusef Komunyakaa's "We Never Know"

With odes:

• What are you celebrating by celebrating the subject?

• Again, what quality of the subject stands out to you as another way to look at the subject?

Odes

1. Allen Tate's "Ode to the Confederate Dead"

2. Pablo Neruda's "Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market"

3. Alexander Pope's "Ode on Solitude"

4. Elizabeth Alexander's "Praise Song for the Day" (Read for Obama's inauguration)

5. John Keats' "To Autumn"

6. Kevin Young's "Ode to the Midwest"

7. Anne Sexton's "In Celebration of My Uterus"

Breaking the Sonnet

"Sonnet" by Todd Swift in the February 2011 issue of Poetry. You might be struck by how Swift reduces the form down into its lyrical base much like Ezra Pound discusses, how reflective the poem is about the form and what the poem is doing. It turns on itself, and on the form,

After reading a handful of traditional sonnets, we can now look at how those conventions can broken (and many times are) in contemporary verse.

For next Monday, you will write your own version of the sonnet--taking and cutting away what you need from the form. Playing with traditional forms is very, very important to a writer's growth. Use of the form what you need; diverge from its paths when impulse and intellect demand!

Working Off Triteness

One of the big things with writing original poetry is to use original language. One of the big complications that arise is creating those images and figures of speech that are purely of our own voices--and not of those built in us over time. Cliches: those figures of speech we hear daily, have lived with all our lives, it seems. We want to erase them from our poems. We want to reorder those words. The best way to write original language, then, is to be conscious of our phrases: keep them on our minds but tell them no!

Here are a few websites that list those cliches.

1. The "largest collection of cliches"

2. Cliche Finder


It may seem elementary, but one of the ways a writer checks themselves is to Google phrases from one's work. If there are a 10,000 hits, run away...

Sonnet Examples

Here, the Poetry Foundation has a great page for you to explore further.

As for our second goal of the day, to introduce the idea of sonnets, we will look at another Jehanne Dubrow poem (one that she read and has stayed with me since last spring's reading): "Non-essential Equipment"

Here are some other modern sonnets for your inspiration:

1. "Death and Taxes" by Urayoan Noel

2. "Interstate Sonnet" by Carl Marcum

3.  "And Indians" by Glyn Maxwell

4. "The Consent" by Howard Nemerov

5. One of the best modern English poems: James Wright's "Saint Judas"

As we will discuss, sonnets were historically seen, thematically, as addressing the ideals of love. Therefore, love today's activities all coalesce into a big love festival!

HW for Monday, 2/17

1. Print your Epistolary Poem and hand it in.

2. Read "Less Than Everything," chapter 3 in The Virtues of Poetry

Show But Don't Tell: Epistle Practice

With Valentine's Day just a few sun rises away, emotions can get the best of anyone. So, let's practice writing a letter to one of those emotions!

Feelings come from our reactions to life happenings, so our job as a writer is to focus on those life happenings in our writing.

Your directive is to avoid using the word at all, other than in your title. Dear ______, or To _______. You are imitating "To Mockery:" (because I'm arrogant!) because it was a poem that came exactly from this type of writing exercise.

Think about these things as you write:

• No emotions named!
• Craft actions/situations that represent the emotion, instead.
• Create images of the emotion through those actions
• Create a metaphorical (don't use cliches…) image that stands in for the emotion.
• Use internal thoughts that people have when in a situation that causes a certain emotion.  

Call for Submissions from Community College Student Writers

Below is an e-mail that I copy and pasted for you to consider:

Painted Cave Literary Magazine is accepting submissions from community 
college students nationwide for its inaugural issue May 
2014. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis.

 
Painted Cave is the online student-run,faculty-guided literary journal 
of Santa Barbara City College. We publish thework of community college 
student writers in fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction.Painted Cave 
reserves FirstNorth American Serial Rights. We accept simultaneous 
submissions, but pleasenotify us immediately if your work is accepted 
elsewhere.
 
Paste your submission in the body of the email to
paintedcavesubmissionsATgmailDOTcom

Include the genre of the submission, title(s) and your name in the 
subject line(Fiction, “Born Too Late,” Mary Mullins).
 
We accept the following genres:
 
Flash Fiction: 1-3 pieces, no more than 750 words each.
 
Fiction: 1 piece, no more than 5000 words.
 
Poetry: 3-5 poems, no more then 50 lines each.
 
Creative Nonfiction: 1 piece, no more than 5000 words.
 
Flash Creative Nonfiction: 1-3 pieces, no more than 750words each.
 
Chella Courington, faculty adviser
Santa Barbara City College
couring@sbcc.edu

HW for Wed., 2/12: Epistolary Poems:

1. Pick at least one figure of speech used in an epistolary poem below, and write notes on the usage in the poem. We will discuss your discoveries Wednesday.

2. With "Black Iris", what is interesting about Bond's syntax?   

The Poetry Foundation has a great link to epistles/epistolary poems (also called letter poems or verse letters):  click me!

Here are a few poems from the first Latino winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets (most prestigious American award for a 1st book of poetry), Eduardo Corral:

1. "To Robert Hayden"
2. "To the Angelbeast" and an interview that gives us insight into the title's allusion to Hayden's poetry 

Also, check out "Love Letter (Clouds)" by Sarah Manguso.

And, Dorothea Lasky's "Poem to an Unnameable Man."

Because I write many epistolary poems, and because these two are linked, I am sheepishly using here are two examples: "To Mockery:" and "To Failure:"

Here is another "To Failure," this time from a famous poet -- the poet Philip Larkin.

To further my teacherly ego, here is a poem from Verse Daily, originally published in Columbia Poetry Review, where I was editor (and chose this poem for publication): "Black Iris"

To seal the ego -- um, I mean -- deal, here is a poem published by a grad-school mate, Ian Harris: "XOXO Los Angeles"

Our Exquisite Corpses, part 1

Mona Mayfair from L---
Fearless
Sexual deviant
Hope for strength
Alex, short and sweet
the name rings
of a spiny, quirky nature
To cup the earth in my palm
& feel the warmth of new life
as a flash of green erupts
from the small m…
Bring the earth to life
Say what you think. Do what you know
right. Don't wait around to follow somebody
else's footsteps.
Art, Art in whatever form I can see it
Anger? Sadness? Frustration? Fear?
Draw! Write! Crochet! Cook! The list is endless
Tis my meditation! My true savior to be worshipped.
I run around the wheel trying to escape the smell
of these damn pencil shavings, the mildew
on the damp 2-liter pipe.


The Golden One is driven not by the stark truths of the Earth, but the emotion in her heart.
Elaira--it just popped in my head and I'm tired of being one of many.
Teleportation!
The options endless, the travel plans, too!
Late to work or school? Never! Not once!
I may abuse this….
Then I wouldn't have to deal with mannerless travelers, their cars sunk in fast
lanes and their mouths punching the backs of airline seats.
And so I would lose myself in the wildness of the rhythm such is the hold that music holds
over my soul. Never shall I be titled (?) from the beat.
My rhythmic movement makes their skin crawl,
and they say my eyes are cold. My belly is smooth
and I glide across surfaces, and wrap myself
to show affection. 
Isn't it odd, how trees grow up? 
They plan their roots on the ground and sprout up!
How do they know? How do they grow?
In an everyday activity, most wouldn't even think it,
but think. Trees grow everywhere.


I would be Arthur Dent from Hitchhiker's Guide
because he best to be perfectly ordinary
while experiencing the extraordinary in outer space.
Don't panic
Kit, always Kit. Or better yet the porcelain
Doll. Always compared to both. Kinda feel like
A mix of the two. Both fragile and range in emotion.
though I suppose neither is really a name.
I'd flummox evil with my wit, make them circulate
their tales in their circular logic.
Arrogance large and small would make my blood boil,
overzealous pride is far from a virtue.
Without you I have no balance. I feel the initial
hit as you spread. Small, large, colored, rattled,
only you. I love, only you.
I soar above the clouds, but never truly free.
There are people who want me dead, for sport, for fun.
I stand for hope and liberty amongst this nation.
My wings spread strong and wide.
Clasping claws with the desperation that only love provides,
the bald eagle plummets with his mate
breathing nearly with the earth
before swooping back into the sky's embrace.

HW for 2/10

1. Hand in your Event Poem
2. Read and be ready to discuss "Best Thought"--the second chapter--of The Virtues of Poetry.

The Rudy Giuliani Game

Vice President Joe Biden, in his run for presidency, once quipped during a Democratic debate that former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani made his own presidential candidacy out of saying three words: a noun, a verb, and 9/11.

Putting politics aside, Biden's critique does imply the power of two things: 1. A historic event and it's connotations, and 2. the simple sentence!

How can this help our writing? Quite simply, we are going to use he Rudy Giuliani method to brainstorm a handful of possible "non-traditional patriotic images"for Essay 1.

Here are the simple steps of the The Rudy Giuliani Game:

1. Draft a simple sentence using:  a noun, a verb, a preposition (on, during, after, ...) and 9/11.

2. Repeat this formula five to ten times, so that you will have a list for the class to discuss which images both surprise and engage us as an audience.

Here are a few examples of how students have responded to the game in the past. For one, we can see powerful, serious, and evocative images created out of such a simple exercise:

Flags fly on 9/11.
Shadows died after 9/11.
Firefighters fought on 9/11.
Dust settled after 9/11.
Strangers cried on 9/11.
Doors opened on 9/11
Pens wrote because 9/11.

The Meter's Running

Call a cab or check out this website for more on the rhythms of meter.



"The Various Light": A Few Simple  Notes:

• restraint of language/"plain language" gets less love amongst beginners (and longtime practitioners) than excess
• Longenbach uses Yeats to show "simple" language and syllables can be as powerful as one-hundred dollar words! 

• Here is "The Fish"--which Longenbach explores its "anapestic nature" and low count of syllables. 

• "Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931" shows that one can use meter, but also get away with a looser rhyme scheme, as well.

Event Poem Examples

Poems can arise out of the writer's meditation on typical events -- birthday parties, weddings, national holidays, religious events (not just holidays but ceremonies and rituals within a church, such as Catholic communion or a bar or bat mitzvah) -- but also out of unique historical happenings that in someway help define a culture, an era, a country -- 9/11, the Cold War, Desert Storm, the Exxon Valdez spill, the Million Man march, and more.

Below are a few poems of which we can see how an event can be inspire a poem that goes beyond just the event. and uses facts and details about and from the event to create a piece that is more than just about the event.

Below are a few poems of which emphasize different elements:  imagery, metaphor, sound patterns, and point of view/locus in using their events to create art:

1. First, let's study Jehanne Dubrow's "Chernobyl Year" to see how the a famous nuclear plant explosion is the backdrop for a poem whose heart is really in a family conflict. What do you find intriguing about Dubrow's images?

2. Now, let's experience Josh Clover's "Nevada Glassworks," which explores more than just the US nuclear bomb tests happening in Nevada in post World War II.  What are some of the surprises, even confusions, that you find in Clover's poem?

3. Jane Hirshfield uses the poetic technique of anaphora to create a wedding poem: "A Blessing for Wedding."  What are some of the surprises we see in what Hirshfield observes, and why is the beginning repetition appropriate for the occasion?

4. How does Tony Gloeggler say a lot in what he doesn't say, in his poem "Five Years Later"?

5.  Kenneth Goldsmith crafted his poems out of found material from the day of the bombings.

6. Here is a poem from an Iraqi solider, Hugh Martin, called "Four-letter Word."

7. Frank O'Hara's most famous poem is "The Day Lady Died," and is known cherished by lit crits for the vivid recollection of the speaker's day on the day Billie Holiday died.

8. I must admit, this poet is one of my best friends. That said, his first book explores a young couple's marriage when the wife gets seriously ill. Here is the title poem, "The Year of What Now."

Exquisite Introductions

Exquisite Corpse is a poetry form originated by French surrealist poets in the early 1900s.

To get to have some fun in getting to know each other, and to get your brains rolling with delightful lines, we're going to use the exquisite corpse form. 

Try to write with creativity and clarity (whatever that means at this point!), and to respond to the other writer to link your line to the last:

Line 1:  If you could be any character from a literary piece, who would you be and what quality/characteristic/action of that character stands out?

Line 2: Better yet, if you could re-name yourself, what would your new name be and why?

Line 3: What super-power would you have, and what would you do with it? (Be appropriate!)

Line 4: What bothers you about people? Make sure to define the people! Generalize an issue you have with the world.

Line 5: What is your daily savior from the world's chaos? Detail an action/object and how it keeps you alive!

Line 6: Transform yourself into another animal without telling us. Clue us in with your action and description.

Line 7: End on an image of nature: make a strange observation about something happening in nature.