Readings/Assignments for Thursday, April 7 2005

Reminder: Class is canceled on Thursday, March 31, as I will be out of town for a conference. Please use the additional time to work on the rough draft of your 10-12 page paper, which will be due at our next class meeting on Thursday, April 7. Blogs will not be due on Wednesday, March 30, but you can do extra credit blogging this week (up to two posts). You can use the memoir prompt given below, and/or write a post on readings you haven't discussed in blog format yet, or submit a "freestyle" blog of your choice.

Extra credit memoir prompt from The Autobiography Box for extra credit blogs due by Wednesday, March 30:

Describe a significant event that brought you closer to, or further away, from your religious devotions. The spiritual life can come upon a person in a sweeping moment or over the course of a long period of time. Have you ever experienced visions or other moments of a spiritual nature? If you had a single moment that you can recall, describe the details leading up to and following that epiphany. How did it change your life afterwards? If you slowly gravitated to a religious tradition or a way of thinking about the divine, show in a series of snapshots how you were brought closer and closer to the spiritual over that time.

For Thursday, April 7, 2005:

Don't forget that rough drafts of your paper are due today!

Please print out and read the following full-text articles which can be located via Project Muse, in the USD Library Research Databases. To access the articles, Click Here to go to USD's library page, click to the Research Databases link in the right column, and then type in Project Muse in the Search by Database prompt. (If you are working off-campus, note that you will be prompted for your Network ID and Password prior to being given access to the Research Databases). Once in Project Muse, you can search for the articles using title or author's last name, etc. The articles are available in both HTML and PDF format:

"Elizabeth Bishop and Containment Policy," by Steven Gould Axelrod, American Literature, Vol. 75, No. 4 (December 2003), pp. 843-867.

"Elizabeth Bishop's Impersonal Personal," by Bonnie Costello, American Literary History, Vol. 15, No. 2 (2003), pp. 334-366.

Please also read the following poems from Elizabeth Bishop's Complete Poems: 1927-1976:

"Arrival at Santos," p. 89
"Brazil," p. 91
"Questions of Travel," p. 93
"Electrical Storm," p. 100
"The Armadillo," p. 103
"First Death in Nova Scotia," p. 125
"Filling Station," p. 127
"Visits to St. Elizabeths," p. 133
"Giant Toad," p. 139
"Strayed Crab," p. 140
"Giant Snail," p. 141
"Under the Window," p. 153
"In the Waiting Room," p. 159
"Crusoe in England," p. 162
"The Moose," p. 159
"One Art," p. 178
"Santarem," p. 185
"Pink Dog," p. 190
"Sonnet," p. 192
"Exchanging Hats," p. 200

And finally, here is this week's memoir prompt from The Autobiography Box for blog posts due on Wednesday, April 6:

Write about a strange family member. Were you frightened of this person or were they frightened of you? Were they funny? Did they look strange or behave strangely? Do you still carry on a relationship with that person? Write a scene in which that person is doing or exhibiting the things that made them strange. Are you involved in this scene?

Readings/Assignments for Thursday, March 24, 2005

Important!! Don't forget that Modeling Poem #2 will be due today! You may model any poet studied in the class thus far, provided that you didn't already model this poet in your first modeling assignment. Also, don't forget to include a one-page (250-word) analysis that discusses the specific ways in which your poem is imitating the style traits of your chosen poet/poem.

Please read/print out the following articles, which are available as Full-Text Articles from WilsonSelectPlus in the USD Library Research Databases. To access WilsonSelectPlus, click here to get to the USD Library Research Databases page. Next, click on Arts and Humanities. On the next screen, click on Language and Literature. On the screen after that, click on Arts and Humanities Search. You'll be taken to a screen next that has a drop-down menu for databases to search, at which point you'll want to replace AH Search with WilsonSelectPlus on the drop-down menu. Now you can simply type in article or author titles to pull up the full-text articles from the WilsonSelectPlus database. (Please note that at some point during this process you'll most likely be prompted for your USD User ID and Password).

"Dedications: Lowell's 'Skunk Hour' and Bishop's 'The Armadillo,'", by Lloyd Schwartz, Salmagundi, No. 141/142 (Winter Spring 2004).

""Elizabeth Bishop's 'Queer Birds': Vassar, Con Spirito, and the Romance of Female Community," by Bethany Hicok, Contemporary Literature, Vol. 40 No. 2 (Summer 1999), pp. 285-310.

"Elizabeth Bishop's Stories of Childhood: Writing the Disaster," by Andre Furlani, Critique, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Winter 2002).

Please also read the following poems from Elizabeth Bishop's Complete Poems 1927-1976:

"The Map," p. 3
"The Man-Moth," p. 14
"Florida," p. 32
"Roosters," p. 35
"The Fish," p. 42
"A Cold Sring," p. 55
"Over 2,000 Illustrations," p. 57
"The Bight," p. 60
"At the Fishhouses," p. 64
"Cape Breton," p. 67
"Insomnia," p. 70
"Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore," p. 82
"The Shampoo," p. 84

And finally, here is this week's memoir prompt from The Autobiography Box:

Remember something or somebody you pursued with a passion. How old were you when this happened? Does it seem a rite of passage, or a turning point in growing up? Did you get the thing or that person? If so, was it worth it? If not, do you have regrets?

Important Class Announcement!

Class on Thursday, March 17, 2005, will be temporarily moved to Old Main 202 instead of our normally-scheduled class meeting room. Please make sure to go to Old Main 202 at our regularly-scheduled class time on Thursday.

Don't forget that Jeanne Emmons will be giving a poetry reading on Wednesday, March 16, 2005, at 4:00 p.m. in Farber Hall. Please come and hear her if you are able. I'm willing to dole out extra credit if you come to the reading and write an extra credit blog post about it.

Spring Break and Readings/Assignments for Thursday, March 17, 2005

No blogs are due on Wednesday, March 9, since it's spring break week, but you are welcome to post extra credit blogs by midnight on Wednesday, March 9 (up to two posts) for 10 points of extra credit apiece. Please make sure to label these posts as Extra Credit Spring Break Blogging. One post will be a memoir prompt response, as usual, and the other can be a response to past readings/poets or a free-form post on any subject of your choice! Here's the extra credit spring break memoir prompt:

Describe a moment of pure joy. there are times in our lives when everythintg comes together in a chemical reaction of joy. It can be the simplest thing: you are sitting outside on a sunny day drinking wine with your best friend, and he tells you a funny joke, just as a bird lands on a branch nearby to sing, and suddenly, your heart lifts, your spirit is up in the air, you feel ridiculous and glorious all at once. Once you've returned to earth, you realize that something has changed--you are not the person you were a moment before. Can you recall such a moment?

Readings/Assignments for Thursday, March 17, 2005:

Blog posts will resume as normally scheduled, and will be due (as per usual) on Wednesday, March 16, by midnight.

Please read/print out the following articles, which are available as Full-Text Articles from WilsonSelectPlus in the USD Library Research Databases. To access WilsonSelectPlus, click here to get to the USD Library Research Databases page. Next, click on Arts and Humanities. On the next screen, click on Language and Literature. On the screen after that, click on Arts and Humanities Search. You'll be taken to a screen next that has a drop-down menu for databases to search, at which point you'll want to replace AH Search with WilsonSelectPlus on the drop-down menu. Now you can simply type in article or author titles to pull up the full-text articles from the WilsonSelectPlus database. (Please note that at some point during this process you'll most likely be prompted for your USD User ID and Password).

"'And Everyone and I Stopped Breathing': William Carlos Williams, Frank O'Hara and the News of the Day in Verse," by Paul R. Cappucci, Papers on Language and Literature, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Fall 2003), p. 375-89.

"Tribes of New York: Frank O'Hara, Amiri Baraka, and the Poetics of the Five Spot," by Michael Magee, Contemorary Literature, Vol. 42, No. 4 (Winter 2001), pp. 694-726.

Please also read Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara, and as much of David Lehman's The Evening Star as you can get through.

Finally, here is the memoir prompt from The Autobiography Box for this week:

Write about the first time you went away from home alone. Was it a vacation? Was it for work? Were you looking for something? Were you running away? Do you see that excursion as a "hero's journey", or did you go kicking and screaming? How did it change you?