The United States of Poetry--Reading Poems
Dee Morris, University of Iowa
Texts
Brogan, T.V.F. New Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms Nelson, Cary Oxford Anthology of Modern American Poetry anthology website http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/ READING SCHEDULE
I. The poem itself . . .
POEMS AS OBJECTS:
August 28 Introduction: reading / poems August 30 Anthology of Modern American Poetry-"Preface" (xxix)
Brooks "We Real Cool" (722, 1233)
Hughes poems (1230-32)
Hughes bookcover & "The Weary Blues" (504-05)
ANTHOLOGY
&
POETRY
POEMS AS IDEOGRAMS:
Sept. 4 Angel Island (491-93)
Tom Phillips, Humument
Bob Brown's 1450-1950 (click on "Historical," "Bob Brown," then "05")
Williams, "Young Sycamore" (170)
Pound, "In a Station of the Metro" (204)
Cummings, "Buffalo Bill" (346)
IDEOGRAM Sept. 6 Louis, "Petroglyphs of Serena" (1134-1141)
Louis, Bookjackets
Olds, "Ideographs" (1079)
VISUAL POETRY
POEMS AS SONOGRAMS:
Sept. 11 Stein, "Patriarchal Poetry" (54-83)
Mullen, from "Trimmings" (1187-88)
Kaufman, "Crootey Songo" (819)
SOUND &
SOUND POETRYSept. 13 Plath, "Daddy" (984-86)
Plath, "Lady Lazarus" (988-90)
ALLITERATION &
ASSONANCE
POEMS AS SCRIPTS: BLUES, SLAMS, & MINSTREL SHOWS:
| Sept. 18 | blues
sounds: handout & cd sounds: statesboro blues, by Blind Willie McTell (1928) statesboro blues, by Allman Brothers (1971) nobody know you, by Bessie Smith (1929) nobody know you, by Eric Clapton (1992) good morning little schoolgirl, by Mississippi Fred McD (1969) good morning little schoolgirl, by Grateful Dead (1968) good morning little schoolgirl, by Junior Wells (1965) dust my broom, by Robert Johnson (1936) dust my broom, by Elmore James (1951) terraplane blues, by Robert Johnson (1936) terraplane blues, by John Lee Hooker & Roy Rogers (1987) |
GENRE,
MUSIC AND POETRY, & BLUES |
|
| Sept. 20 | Sterling
Brown, "Memphis Blues" (475-76), "Rent Day Blues" (481-82),
"Choices" (485) Hughes, "The Weary Blues" (504-05), "Backlash Blues" (524) Ginsberg, "Father Death Blues" (873-74) Dumas, "Low Down Dog Blues" (994-95) |
IMAGERY & REFRAIN |
|
| Sept. 25 | blues
women: poems for Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday & poems by Sherley Anne Williams (handout) O'Hara, "The Day Lady Died" (289) |
SIGNIFYING & DOZENS |
|
| Sept. 27 | more blues blues paper clinic |
PERFORMANCE | prospectus due |
| Oct. 2 | Slampapi website SLAM FILM |
TONE & VOICE | |
| Oct. 4 | Smith, poems
(1198-1201) Smith, Marc. "Little Guy" (xerox) Estep, "Sex Goddess of the Western World" |
DRAMATIC POETRY | paper due |
| Oct. 9 | Berryman,
"Dream Songs" (721-28) Dream Song commentary: the minstrel show |
SONG COMEDY |
|
| Oct. 11 | Berryman,
"Dream Songs" |
SEQUENCE | |
| Oct. 16 | Berryman,
"Dream Songs" |
STANZA | |
| Oct. 18 | MIDTERM |
2. Clusters of poems . . .
POEMS AS CONVERSATIONS . . . WITH WALT WHITMAN:
| Oct. 23 | Whitman,
"I Hear America Singing (2) Hughes, "Let America Be America Again" (515) Cummings, "next to of course god america i" (348) Creeley, "America" (878) Snyder, "I Went into the Maverick Bar" (957) |
INTERTEXTUALITY | |
| Oct. 25 | Whitman,
"Vigil Strange I Kept" (3-4) Rich, from "An Atlas" (954) Ashbery, "Paradoxes and Oxymorons" (905) |
APOSTROPHE | |
| Oct. 30 | Whitman,
"One's-Self I Sing" (1) Sandberg, "Chicago" (107-08) Walker, "For My People" (735-36 Smith, "Skinhead" (1200-01) Levine, "They Feed They Lion" (927-28) |
THEME |
|
| Nov. 1 | Whitman,
"I Hear It Was Charged" & "A Glimpse" (3) Ginsberg, "Love Poem on a Theme by Whitman" (848) Rich, "Twenty-One Love Poems" (945-53) Doty, "Homo Will Not Inherit" (1183-86) |
LOVE POETRY | |
| Nov. 6 | Whitman
(xerox) Alexie, "How to Write the Great American Indian Novel" (1220) Alexie, "Defending Walt Whitman" (xerox) Young Bear, "In Viewpoint" (1162-65) |
POEMS AS COMMUNITY SPEECH:
| Nov. 8 | Harlem
Renaissance: Hughes, "Negro" and "The Negro Speaks" (503-04) Dunbar, "We Wear the Mask" (37) Cullen, "Incident" |
POLITICS & POETRY | |
| Nov. 13 | Tolson,
"Dark Symphony" (413-17) |
||
| Nov. 15 | Black
Arts Movement: Amiri Baraka (997-999) |
||
| Nov. 20 | Komunyaka, poems (1142-48) |
3. Poems as truth-telling . . . straight & slant:
TESTIMONY/DOCUMENTARY:
| Nov. 27 | Reznikoff, from "Testimony" (355-64) | ||
| Nov. 29 | Reznikoff,
from "Holocaust" (364-70) Oppen, "In Alsace" Hecht, "More Light! More Light" (816-17) |
IMAGINATION |
HISTORY:
| Dec. 4 | LYNCHING:
On Lynching Hughes,"Three Songs About Lynching" (509-10), "The Bitter River" (518-20), "Ku Klux" (520) Brown McKay, "The Lynching" (316) Boyle, "A Communication to Nancy Cunard" (542-46). Hayden |
||
| Dec. 6 | THE
THIRTIES : On the
Depression Stevens, "Mozart, 1935" (139-40) Williams, "The Yachts" (192-93) Wright, "We of the Streets" (584) Rolfe, "Aesbestos" & "Season of Death" (609-10) Beecher, "Report to the Stockholders" Taggard, "Up State--Depression Summer" (336-38) Kalar, "Papermill" (583) |
| Dec. 11 | Dickinson,
"Tell all the Truth" (17) Stevens, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" (127-29) & "Anecdote of the Jar" (130) Bishop, "The Fish" (631-33) |
METAPHOR & METONYMY | |
| Dec. 13 | W. S. Merwin, poems (912-920) | SYMBOL |
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