A poem can be said to have two subjects, the initiating or triggering subject, which starts the poem or “causes” the poem to be written, and the real or generated subject, which the poem comes to say or mean, and which is generated or discovered in the poem during the writing. That’s not quite right because it suggests that the poet recognizes the real subject. The poet may not be aware of what the real subject is but only have some instinctive feeling that the poem is done.
Young poets find it difficult to free themselves from the initiating subject. The poet puts down the title: “Autumn Rain.” He [or she] finds two or three good lines about Autumn Rain. Then things start to break down. He [or she] cannot find anything more to say about Autumn Rain so he [or she] starts making up things, he strains, he goes abstract, he starts telling us the meaning of what he has already said. The mistake he is making, of course, is that he feels obligated to go on talking about Autumn Rain, because that, he feels, is the subject. Well, it isn’t the subject. You don’t know what the subject is, and the moment you run out of things to say about Autumn Rain start talking about something else. In fact, it’s a good idea to talk about something else before you run out of things to say about Autumn Rain.
Don’t be afraid to jump ahead. There are a few people who become more interesting the longer they stay on a single subject. But most people are like me, I find. The longer they talk about one subject, the duller they get.
Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town
REQUIRED BOOKS:
Blood Dazzler, by Patricia Smith
Loose Woman, by Sandra Cisneros
New & Selected Poems, by Gary Soto
Sailing Alone Around the Room, by Billy Collins
She Had Some Horses, by Joy Harjo
The Oxford Book of American Poetry, edited by David Lehman
The Poet’s Companion, edited by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Lux
WEEK ONE
T – 1/12
• Introduction to Class
R – 1/14
• Read: Poet’s Companion: “Writing and Knowing,” p. 19 [RR]
• Read: “Sizing Up the Sparrows,” p. 1, Soto; “Introduction to Poetry,” p. 6, and “Tuesday, June 4, 1991,” p. 58, Collins; “I Let Him Take Me,” p. 11, Cisneros; “The Poem I Just Wrote,” p. 58, Harjo; “Ars Poetica,” MacLeish, p. 385, Oxford.
WEEK TWO
T – 1/19
• Read: Poet’s Companion: “The Music of the Line,” p. 104 [RR]
• Write: Two poems: Poem One: Bring 20 copies (large group) [PP]
Poem Two: Bring 1 copy (instructor) [PP]
R – 1/21
• Readings: Maria Rathje and Nate Pillman
• Workshop Poems
• Read: Poet’s Companion: “Images,” p. 85 [RR]
• Read: Blood Dazzler, “Prologue”- p. 23
WEEK THREE
T – 1/26
• Readings: Jase Rohde and Jessica Slavik
• Workshop Poems
• Read: Poet’s Companion: “Simile and Metaphor,” p. 94 [RR]
• Read: Blood Dazzler, pp. 24-49
• Write: Smith poem.
R – 1/28
• Readings: Laurel Scott and Thomas Sloan
• Workshop Poems
• Read: Poet’s Companion: “Voice and Style,” p. 115 [RR]
• Read: Blood Dazzler, pp. 50-end.
• Write: Smith poem.
WEEK FOUR
T – 2/2 –
• NO CLASS.
• Attend Symposium one Wildness event. Patricia Smith reading from 1:00-2:00, Sunday, January 31, in the Memorial Union Sunroom.
• Write: 250 response to Symposium
R – 2/4
• Write “family” poem [PP]
• Read: Poet’s Companion: “The Family: Inspiration and Obstacle,” p. 30
WEEK FIVE
T – 2/9
• Readings: Jill Thomasson and Alan Ferden
• Read & Discuss: New and Selected Poems, Soto. Pp. 6-92
• Write: Soto poem [PP]
R – 2/11
• Readings: Sarah Baughman and Megan Martuelllo
• Read & Discuss: New and Selected Poems, Soto, pp. 93-177
• Write: Three-page critical response [CR]
WEEK SIX
T – 2/16
• Readings: Hannah Walleser and Rachel Pratt
• Write “erotic” poem [PP]
• Read: Poet’s Companion: “Writing the Erotic,” p. 46
R – 2/18
• Readings: Alissa Griffith and Michael Schneider and James Galvan
• Write: Two poems: Poem One: Bring 20 copies (large group) [PP]
Poem Two: Bring 1 copy (instructor) [PP]
WEEK SEVEN
T – 2/23
• Readings: Leah Baugh and Sean Roper
• Workshop Poems
• Conferences – Bring poetry portfolio and S and A comments
R – 2/25
• Readings: Eric Fackrell and Kevin Conrad and Megan Marturello
• Workshop Poems
• Conferences – Bring poetry portfolio and S and A comments
WEEK EIGHT
T – 3/2
• Readings: Rick Telsrow and Samuel Jelinek
• Read: Collins, Sailing Alone Around the Room, pp. 3-83
• Write: Collins poem [PP]
r – 3/4
• Read: Collins, Sailing Alone Around the Room, pp. 87-171
• Write: Three-Page Critical Response [CR]
WEEK NINE
T – 3/9
• Readings: Matthew Hurley and Cory Skeers
• Write: Two poems: Poem One: Bring 7 copies (small group) [PP]
Poem Two: Bring 1 copy (instructor) [PP]
r – 3/11
• Readings: Maria Rathje and Nate Pillman
• Workshop Poems – Small Group Workshop
3/16 and 3/18 - Spring Break
WEEK TEN
T – 3/23
• Readings: Jase Rohde and Jessica Slavik
• Read: Cisneros, Loose Woman
• Write: Cisneros poem [PP]
r – 3/24
• Readings: Laurel Scott and Thomas Sloan
• Discuss Cisneros
• Write: Three Page Critical Response [CR]
WEEK ELEVEN
T – 3/30
• Readings: Jill Thomasson and Alan Ferden
• Write: Bring 7 copies of two poems; mark the one for small-group discussion.
r – 4/1
• No class – group meeting.
WEEK TWELVE
T – 4/6
• No class – group meeting.
r – 4/8
• No class – group meeting.
WEEK THIRTEEN
T – 4/13
• Readings: Hannah Walleser and Rachel Pratt Two poems toward chapbook due.
• Write “shadow” poem [PP]
• Read: Poet’s Companion: ”The Shadow”
• Read: Harjo: She Had Some Horses
• Write: Harjo poem [PP]
r – 4/15
• Readings: Alissa Griffith and Michael Schneider and James Galvan
• Write: Three-Page Critical Response to Harjo [CR]
• Read: Poet’s Companion: ”Witnessing”
WEEK FOURTEEN
T – 4/20
• Readings: Leah Baugh and Sean Roper
• Write “place” or “witnessing” poem [PP]
• Read: Poet’s Companion: ”Poetry of Place”
R – 4/22
• Write: Two poems: Poem One: Bring 20 copies (large group) [PP]
Poem Two: Bring 1 copy (instructor) [PP]
WEEK FIFTEEN
T – 4/27
• Readings: Eric Fackrell and Kevin Conrad and Megan Maturello
• Workshop Poems
R – 4/ 29
• Readings: Rick Telsrow and Samuel Jelinek
• Workshop Poems
• Poetry Portfolio due, including three revised poems.
WEEK SIXTEEN
Final
• Readings: Matthew Hurley and Cory Skeers
• Chapbooks Due, with cover
Oxford Poets for Readings
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Walt Whitman
• Emily Dickinson
• Robert Frost
• Gertrude Stein
• Carl Sandburg
• Wallace Stevens
• William Carlos Williams
• Ezra Pound
• HD
• Marianne Moore
• T.S. Eliot
• E.E. Cummings
• Louise Bogan
• Stephen Vincent Benet
• Hart Crane
• Langston Hughes
• Countee Cullen
• Lorine Niedecker
• Stanley Kunitz
• Robert Penn Warren
• W.H. Auden
• Josphine Jacobsen
• Theodore Roethke
• Elizabeth Bishop
• Robert Hayden
• Muriel Rukeyser
• Delmore Schwartz
• Karl Shapiro
• May Swenson
• John Berryman
• Randall Jarrell
• William Stafford
• Gwendolyn Brooks
• Ruth Herschberger
• Robert Lowell
• Robert Duncan
• Charlies Bukowski
• Amy Clampitt
• Barbara Guest
• Howard Nemerov
• Mona Van Duyn
• Richard Wilbur
• Richard Hugo
• Denise Levertov
• Louis Simpson
• Donald Justice
• Carolyn Kiser
• Kenneth Koch
• A.R. Ammons
• Robert Bly
• Robert Creeley
• Allen Ginsberg
• James Merrill
• Frank O’Hara
• David Wagoner
• John Ashberry
• Galway Kinnell
• W.S. Merwin
• James Wright
• Donald Hall
• Philip Levine
• Anne Sexton
• John Hallander
• Adrienne Rich
• Gary Snyder
• Sylvia Plath
• Mark Strand
• Russell Edson
• Mary Oliver
• Charles Wright
• C.K. Williams
• Charles Simic
• Fanny Howe
• Robert Pinsky
• Robert Hass
• Marilyn Hacker
• Linda Gregg
• Sharon Olds
• Ron Padgett
• Louise Gluck
• Michael Palmer
• Bernadette Mayer
• Kay Ryan
• Jane Kenyon
• Yusef Komunyakaa
• Susan Mitchell
• Molly Peacock
• David Shapiro
• Heather McHugh
• Katha Pollitt
• Caroyn Forché
• Edward Hirsch
• John Yau
