Alex E. Blazer Course Site Syllabus
Listserv Treasure Hunt
Reading Journal Criticism  
Exam Review Group Project Final Paper

Assignments

"The poem of the mind . . ."

English 260C (08026-3): Introduction to Poetry

Winter 2002, T/R: 1:30 - 3:18 PM, Denney Hall 308

Listserv Response Sign-Up

These listserv responses serve three goals:

 

1) to compel you to actively read these poems

2) to help your peers understand these poems even as they're reading them

3) to broach issues for class discussion

 

Sign up for two slots, but please make sure the poets are at least three weeks apart.  In your post, be sure to respond to the correct material.  Once you've signed up for a slot, choose one of the poems to analyze closely in your response (if the poem is incredibly short, you may respond to more).  If applicable and appropriate, attempt to focus your response on an element of poetry as presented in class.  Use the response as an opportunity to develop a preliminary interpretation of the poem as well as steer class discussion in the direction of issues you want to work with.  These papers are informal, thus need not be polished; however, they should be fully engaged with the ideas and themes of the individual poem. Conclude your response with questions for class discussion and a link to and brief description of a useful website on the poet (using the research strategies illustrated in class). Your annotated link will be added to the course website. You will be responsible to perform the poem (or a large chunk of it) in class.

 

Submit your response to the listserv, listserv-blazer@lists.acs.ohio-state.eduno later than 12PM on the the Saturday before the poet is to be discussed in class.  This is especially important for your peers and I, who base class discussion on your responses, need time to read your post.  Responses will be penalized one letter grade for each day late; responses turned in on the day the poems are to be discussed in class will receive an "E".  As this policy will be strictly enforced, I suggest submitting your response to the listserv well in advance of the deadline in order to make sure it goes through and your peers and I have the benefit of your reflection as we read the poems. Finally, because we have differing operating systems and software, please refrain from sending attachments.

 

For example, if you sign your name in the box beside the box containing Friedrich Hölderlin's "Voice of the People," "Chiron," "Germania, and "The Only One," your response, which you would submit to the course listserv by 12 PM Saturday, October 5, should include 1) 250 words of close reading of one of those poems, 2) 2-3 questions for class discussion, 3) a link to and brief description of an authoritative website devoted to giving interpretation and biography of Hölderlin.

Poetry Database Treasure Hunt

Using the online poetry resources exemplified in class, answer the following questions.

  1. What is the etymology of the word "poet" and to whom was the word first applied in English?
  2. Where and when was contemporary American poet Lyn Hejinian born?
  3. What 17th century English poem's first line is "'Twas on a lofty vase's side"?
  4. What (real) audio clips of contemporary American poet Bruce Andrews reading his poetry are available on the web?
  5. Where can one find a few selected poems by modern poet Allen Ginsberg online?
  6. What website features video of National Poetry Slam Y2K?
  7. What is an epithalamium?  Name a poem that exemplifies it and name a poem that parodies it.
  8. Which William Butler Yeats' poems use the word "gyre"?
  9. In what year were poets first honored on United States postage stamps?
  10. Who said, "Poetry is concerned with using with abusing, with losing with wanting, with denying with avoiding with adoring with replacing the noun"?

Answers

  1. What is the etymology of the word "poet" and to whom was the word first applied in English?
        Use: Oxford English Dictionary
        Answer: "maker/creator"
            Homer
  2. Where and when was contemporary American poet Lyn Hejinian born?
        Use: Academy of American Poets
        Answer: San Francisco Bay area
            1941
  3. What 17th century English poem's first line is "'Twas on a lofty vase's side"?
        Use: English Poetry Database
        Answer: Thomas Gray's "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes"
  4. What (real) audio clips of contemporary American poet Bruce Andrews reading his poetry are available on the web?
        Use: Electronic Poetry Corner
        Answer: "Crease"
            "Linebreak Program"
            "I Knew the Signs by Their Tents"
  5. Where can one find a few selected poems by modern poet Allen Ginsberg online?
        Use: Modern American Poetry Site (many other sites offer poetry selections as well)
  6. What website features video of National Poetry Slam Y2K?
        Use: About.com: Contemporary Poetry, Video subsection
        Answer: www.livepoets.com
  7. What is an epithalamium?  Name a poem that exemplifies it and name a poem that parodies it.
        Use: About.com: Contemporary Poetry, General Reference subsection,
            Glossary of Poetry Terms by Bob's Byway
        Answer: A song or poem honoring marriage.
            Spenser's "Epithalamion" exemplifies;
            Sir John Suckling's "A Ballad upon a Wedding" parodies.
  8. Which William Butler Yeats' poems use the word "gyre"?
        Use: Ohiolink language and literature databases, W. B. Yeats Collection
        Answer: "Demon and Beast," "The Second Coming," "Sailing to Byzantium" (1928), and
           "The Gyres" (1938)
  9. In what year were poets first honored on United States postage stamps?
        Use: Academy of American Poets
        Answer: 1940
  10. Who said, "Poetry is concerned with using with abusing, with losing with wanting, with denying with avoiding with adoring with replacing the noun"?
        Use: Ohiolink Language and Literature subject databases; Bartleby.com
        Answer: Gertrude Stein

Reading Journal Study Questions

The goal of the reading journal is to cultivate the habit of active reading and responding to poetry and literature in general (if not all texts). Use the journal as a space to work out your understanding of the operations of the elements of poetry and especially the poet's world views. If you wish, you may use these prompts (to be updated by the day we discuss a poet) as a jumping off point for your responses.

 

Though not formal, these typed entries should at once explore and analyze the poems that you find most engaging as well as develop your feelings toward and evaluation of the poems we're reading in the course.  Spend equal amounts of effort doing close readings of individual poems and constructing a sense of individual poet's worldviews. I also suggest focusing on the elements of poetry as we discuss them in class, but only insofar as you use the elements to interpret the meaning of the poems.  You may also devote an entry to the group of poetry you write your final paper on.  By the end of the quarter you should have 15 entries (one for each poet we read plus one outside poet and one reinvestigation of a poet) of approximately 250 words each. Entries will be collected in total after ever fifth poet covered.

 

Reading journal entries must be typed. They will be collected in total after ever fifth poet. You may turn them in either 1) as a hard copy print out, 2) via email as text, or 3) via computer file (disk or email attachment of Microsoft Word or Word Perfect for Windows).

  1. Shakespeare: What is a love poem? What do you expect from love poetry . . . and what does Shakespeare give you?
  2. Blake: What is the difference between innocence and experience? between Innocence and Experience? What is the relationship between the two? Is there (can there be) such a state of being as experiential innocence?
  3. Keats: What is melancholy, and what is death? How do we conventionally think about death? Describe Keat's relationship to death.
  4. Browning: What is the difference between Browning's world view and the mind set the poet creates in his dramatic characters? How do his character's feel about women and love? How might Browning feel about traditional male conceptions of women and love?
  5. Dickinson: What is Dickinson's relationship with life? According to her mindset, how are life and death related? How does her world view contrast with Keats'?
  6. Whitman: What is love, in Whitman's psychological estimation? Who does he love, and how does he love? What is the function of singing? How does Whitman associate love, song, and poetry?
  7. McKay: What are roots? In Mckay's mind—in McKay's poetry—how does his heritage affect his current cultural situation and vice versa?
  8. Niedecker: What is the essence of an object? What do objects, or in Niedecker's images stripped bare to their core objects, reveal about the poet's mind?
  9. Stevens: What is the relationship between reality and the imagination? between nature and culture? between physics and metaphysics? How does poetry compose reality?
  10. Ferlinghetti: What is the relationship between Eros and Civilization, between boundless love and a rage for order? between love and death? How does the poet negotiation this dichotomy?
  11. Plath: What is the nature of a confession? Why and to whom does Plath bear her soul? How do her "confessions" affect her psyche?
  12. Andrews: How do you read Andrews' tone? What do you think of his fragmented language? What has replaced narrative? Where does the meaning in his poetry reside?
  13. Rilke: What is an elegy? Why write an elegy about oneself when one is still living? What is Rilke's philosophy of life (and death?)
  14. group presentation poet
  15. poet for final paper

Criticism

  1. Bloom, Harold. "Reduction to the First Idea." Dialectics 6 (1976): 48-57. Rpt. in Critical Essays on Wallace Stevens. Eds. Steven Gould Axelrod and Helen Deese. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988. 84-98.
  2. Frye, Northrop. "The Realistic Oriole: A Study of Wallace Stevens." Fables of Identity. New York: Harcourt, 1963. Rpt. in Critical Essays on Wallace Stevens. Eds. Steven Gould Axelrod and Helen Deese. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988. 63-77.
  3. Miller, J. Hillis. "Wallace Stevens." The Poets of Reality. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1965. Rpt. in Critical Essays on Wallace Stevens. Eds. Steven Gould Axelrod and Helen Deese. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988. 77-84.
  4. Yukman, Claudia. "An American Poet's Idea of Language." Critical Essays on Wallace Stevens. Eds. Steven Gould Axelrod and Helen Deese. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988. 230-45.

Exam Review

Group Presentation and

Annotated Bibliography

1. Sign Up

The purpose of this sheet is to form groups.  Sign up for two slots, placing a #1 by your first choice and a #2 by your second choice.  Once groups are assigned, those groups are responsible for meeting with me outside of class to determine a poet of the movement to research.

Romanticism: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Chris Flynn

Jennifer Hilyard

Sarah Pitcock

Harlem Renaissance: Langston Hughes

Jodi Burns

Joshua Luoni

Ezekiel Peebles

Confessional poetry: Anne Sexton

Kip Erwin

Jodi Kurylo

Michelle Lundy

Josh Meihls

Language Poetry: Michael Palmer

Chris Kadlick

Scott Studabaker

Courtney Thompson

Beat Poetry: Jack Kerouac

Nathan Boyer

Josh Marino

Natalie Stefanick

Kari Stringer

Black Arts Movement: Sonia Sanchez

Michal Rubin

Jaylene Stevens

Alex Vu

2. Goals

  1. To learn research skills such as using the web to find sources both in print and online as well as evaluating those sources.
  2. To learn how to construct a web page as well as how to compose an oral presentation enhanced by audiovisual technology.
  3. To learn (and introduce to the class) a poet work and world view by reporting on scholarly research and leading the class through an analysis of exemplary poems.

3. Annotated Bibliography Component

Researching and constructing the annotated bibliography constitutes the predominat part of the assignment.  Please include all of the following sections in your annotated bibliography that will be attached to the course website.  Beyond these elements, the design of the page is left up to you: be as creative as you wish.  Feel free to make my website look bad and boring: use pictures, audio, animation.  Have fun with it!

Due: All web page materials are due either via 1) email attachment, 2) disk, or 3) link by Tuesday, March 7 by 12 PM.

Research Topic

Give the broad concept or issue that you’ll be investigating.
Research Question
Contextualize what you already know, based upon class discussion, and pose a question or two that has guided your research.
Search Strategy
Recapitulate where and how you went about your search for sources.  A few words to the wise about obtaining print sources: 1) Don’t put this off until the last minute.  You should request and check out materials from libraries a full two weeks before the assignment is due.  “The books are in transit” or “The books were checked out” does not constitute a valid excuse for a bibliography lacking 10 sources.  2) Note that OSCAR will tell you if OSU owns a particular journal, but it can’t search for journal articles.  Consequently, on OSU Libraries home page, before entering OSCAR, search Other Online Research Tools a) OSU’s collection of “electronic journals” (this is very limited, but it can’t hurt to try), b) “other databases by subject” page (there’s a listing of numerous databases like Language and Literature, and Psychology, which will link you to MLA Bibliography and a psychology journal search engine.  (You’ll get some of the same databases with which Gateway interfaces, some with which Gateway doesn’t), and 3) finally Gateway, which searches 92 databases.  4) Once you have a critical article or book, check its works cited and reference pages for other books that might help your research.  If you come up empty handed after trying OSCAR, the appropriate “databases by subject,” Gateway, and works cited pages of articles/books you've already found, ask a librarian for help!  Feel free to use Columbus Metropolitan Libraries, but note they are a public library system and your search will need to be augmented by an academic library like OSU.  A few words to the wise about web sources: search the university and organizational websites first (Jack Lynch's page and Internet Public Library, for example) in order to find specialized, scholarly sites, then move on to regular search engines.
Summary of Findings
In 250 words, summarize the different critical interpretations of the subject-matter, describe where critics converge and diverge, and criticize the lines of argument.  Compare and contrast the usefulness and informativeness of web versus print sources.

20 secondary sources

Problem (Question)
Identify what’s at stake or the issue or question that the source is investigating.
Method (Evidence)
Describe how the author supports her argument, for instance with logical claims and assumptions and/or with examples, facts, and statistics.
Proposition (Thesis)

Define the source’s thesis, or sub-thesis relevant to your research question, its contribution to the critical discourse, and/or how it will help your paper; note that his can be combined with the ‘problem’ section.

4. Group Presentation Component

The presentation must accomplish two things: 1) summarize the critics positions on key readings, and 2) teach selected representative poems to the class. I suggest speaking from the summary of findings in order to gloss what interpretations exist out there.  Also, highlight and develop notes on the best of the best print sources.  Feel free to guide the class through the most pertinent web sites as you teach the poems.  In the second part, groups will analyze poems for us by reporting on critical arguments and offering their own intepretations of the selected poems.  Highlight the best of what you found, but be sure to put forth your interpretation of the poem.  Be as creative as you wish.  Keep in mind that you have use of the computer projector and all software the Mac classroom has to offer (i.e., you may choose to compose a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation with all of the audiovisuals and sounds it entails).  Presentations should last 20 minutes, including a five-minute question and answer period.

 

Due: Groups will present on Thursday, March 7, Tuesday, March 12, and Thursday, March 14.

5. A Final Note

Both the annotated bibliography and the group presentation should move beyond mere description and reporting of biography.  Instead, both should be driven by critical analysis and thesis-oriented interpretation.

6. Examples

Example bibliographies written by 260C students last quarter are on the course website.

 

Final Paper

The goal of the final paper is to help you constitute a deeper and more complex understanding of a poet's primary themes, her psyche. All the assignments have been leading up to this point. From class discussion and listserv responses, you've practiced doing close reading and textual analysis; from reading journals and the midterm exam, you've learned to worked with poets' general themes and world views. From the annotated bibliography and group presentation, with the help of your peers and secondary sources, you've combined close readings and world view by teaching the class a poet. This assignment is similar, sans peers and secondary sources. Choose a poet, any poet from the course packet or group presentations or even outside the class (subject to my approval) of whose core themes and world view you're interested in developing a deeper and more complex understanding. Read one or two of the poet's books of poetry and write a journal entry on them to collect and define your thoughts. Then choose one of the following two options.

 

Option 1: A Critical Essay: Your final paper should analyze the poet's basic questions as you see them; your final paper should argue the poet's core conflicts as you interpret them. It should balance close reading and general thematics, using three or four poems that best exhibit the poet's basic subject matter. Don't do close readings of each poem, rather dip into those sections of the poems that best illustrate your interpretation, while putting the poems as a whole in conversation. The final paper of 2000 words minimum, is formal and as such should use MLA format for quoting, headers, and citation. Check with me to see if I have the poems you're using; if I don't please turn a copy in with your paper.

 

Option 2: An Original Poem and Critical (Self-)Assessment: The original poem (to be read to the class) should respond to the ideas and feelings, the primary style and imagination, in other words the worldview and the poetic psyche, of your favorite poet, the poet who has most influenced your understanding of yourself and your world. The critical self-assessment, of no less than 1250 words, should combine first an analytical and thematic explanation of your understanding of the poet and second your artist statement explaining the ideas, feelings, and/or form you were attempting to convey in your poem, especially how they respond to your favorite poet's work. In other words, analyze your poetic process in terms of feeling and the elements of poetry utilized to render that feeling. You must turn in exemplary poems of the poet you're responding to unless you've verified with me that I have them. For the essay portion, use MLA format for quoting, headers, and citation.

 

Due: Tuesday, March 19 by 3:30 PM

Format: either 1) print out, 2) Word for Windows file, or 3) Word Perfect for Windows file