Over the next weeks, will discuss the validity of identifying poetry with photography, and practice identifying puncta in both photos and poems. Poets may include: Will Alexander, Paul Celan, Aimé Césaire, Emily Dickinson, Robert Hass, Mina Loy, Stéphane Mallarmé, Jean Toomer, Tomas Tranströmer, and César Vallejo.
Oct 19 - Barthes, Camera Lucida (First part)
Try to read half of Barthes (p. 18-30) on Saturday and the rest (p. 31-60) on Sunday. Post an excerpt from Barthes that you found important or interesting #punctum, and/or post a photo and describe its "studium" and/or "punctum." If it's a personal photo you do not want to share, you can just post the verbal description.
Oct 21 - Image poems (Modernist)
We will continue to discuss the poems from last class. Review Image slides before class. If you didn't post in #punctum yet, please do so by posting an excerpt from Camera Lucida with commentary, and briefly comment on the studium+punctum of a photo or poem from the slides.
Oct 23 - Image, Sound (Modernist)
Continuation with a focus on Pound, Hughes, Toomer. Discussion of the role of education, inception of 'multi-culturalism' through the University. Modernist poetry as an elite and/or didactic project. Role of black poets in the history of modernist poetry. Finally—do we focus on the visual more, or the aural?
Modernism, race, and the registration of non-standard dialects in poetry. Do poems index 'identity'? How does that affect how we read? Prior to class, find a recording of a human speaking (reading poetry, singing, giving a speech, etc.) in any language and post it to #sound. Write a brief description of this voice. How does it sound, what does it evoke?
Oct 28 - Collaborative essay
An exercise in generating thoughts on Lorenzo Thomas's "The Leopard."
Special: Attend a lecture by Jonathan Culler at 4:30 PM. Information has been sent out by email, and may be re-posted to Canvas closer to the date.
Oct 30 - Collaborative essay
Finishing up the discussion of "The Leopard," comparison with Frank O'Hara's "Chez Jane."
We will discuss her poem "Lady Lazarus." What do you find controversial or disturbing in this poem? How do you think about, resolve, or discuss these points of contention?
Nov 4 - First Sentences
We will practice drafting first sentences of a hypothetical essay on "Lady Lazarus," with close attention to how diction and syntactic structure determines or suggests what comes next.
Nov 6 - Politics in the Poem
We will take a look at several post-9/11 poems and discuss the role of politics in the poem. Does political language change how you engage with poetry? Is it an impediment or a site of attraction for you? Poems include Robert Hass's "Dancing," Hayan Charara's "Usage," excerpts from Claudia Rankine's Citizen, and a sonnet from Ben Lerner's The Lichtenberg Figures.
We will discuss the relationship between certain complex topics, political and scientific, and poetry's "value." Are all poems political? What is politics? What does scientific language bring to the poem? How does your reaction to specific poems, their forms, and their topics relate to your own values as a reader and writer?
Nov 9 - Politics and Values
Poems by Claudia Rankine, Terrance Hayes, Robert Hass, Rainer Maria Rilke
Nov 11 - Politics and Form
Poems by Paul Celan, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks
Nov 13 - Science and the Poem
Poems by Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, César Vallejo, Christopher Dewdney, Christian Bök
No class from 11/16–11/29. Classes resume online on 11/30.
Special: Attend a colloquium on Lucy Alford’s Forms of Poetic Attention at the Stanford Poetics Workshop at 4 PM (EST) on Friday, 11/20. Email me for Zoom invite link.
Individual Conference III (Schedule between 11/30 and 12/11)
Guidelines
Presentations are opportunities for you to share what you have been working on and stay accountable during the final stretch of writing for this course. Here are some constraints:
Each presentation block is 16-25 min. You may designate as little as 5 minutes or as much as 20 minutes to presenting. Remaining time will be dedicated to discussion.
Assign up to 2 pages of prose + 14 lines of poetry for the class to read prior to your presentation. If you want to share more, designate excerpts for your classmates to focus on. Submit the materials to me at least two days in advance so I can distribute them. Earlier is better.
During your presentation, recite the poems you are dealing with; if you are writing about multiple poems or long poems, you may delegate (have someone in the class read them out) and/or present shorter excerpts.
Here are some suggestions for what to present:
Poem-centric: Share a poem and prompt the class to share their reactions to it; provide some questions or an exercise to guide the discussion. No need to share your essay ideas, but having clear ideas about the poem is crucial to producing a well-moderated discussion. Pretend you’re interviewing the class, or collecting data which may supplement your own writing.
Essay-centric: Share a paragraph or more of your essay draft; contextualize it, talk about your writing process, ask for feedback, make live modifications.
Idea-centric: Show us the argumentative arc of your essay. Point out areas where you are struggling to connect broader ideas to specific examples you’d like to include.
Class-centric: Discuss how your essay and its ideas arise from specific units in the class, talk about how your essay is in dialogue with past class sessions. Best to do this if you’re close to done with your essay and if you’re one of the last presenters.
These are simply suggestions. Your presentation may be a blend of these options or something else entirely.