Readings/Assignments for Thursday, April 28, 2005

No readings for this class meeting, as we'll be doing the in-class presentations on contemporary American poets (post-1950) this week instead. (Guidelines for presentations are outlined below).

Please note that in lieu of the regularly-scheduled blog post in response to assigned readings, you can write an informal blog post on the volume of poetry that you did for your presentation this week, or simply do a "freeestyle" blog of your choice, to go along with the regularly-scheduled memoir prompt.

Presentation Guidelines:

Presentations should be ten minutes long.

Your presentation should be on a volume of poetry by a contemporary American poet (post-1950).

Your presentation should focus primarily on describing stylistic traits that you notice about this poet (i.e., Themes and/or Subject Matter; Diction, Voice, and Tone; Imagery; Structure/Form; Symbols, etc.)

Bring copies of one representative poem to pass out to the class (15 copies total); read and discuss the poem in conjunction with the stylistic traits you've pointed out.

Keep biographical material to a minimum, unless it's pertinent to the discussion of the poet's work.

Important!! Your final 10-12 page papers will be due on Thursday, May 5, by 5:00 p.m. in my mailbox in Dakota Hall 226, or if the office is closed, you can slide your paper under my door in Dakota Hall 207. You may also feel free to submit your paper as an e-mail attachment if that is more convenient for you.

And finally, here is your final memoir prompt of the semester from The Autobiography Box:

Write about your first kiss. Maybe it was with a friend, just practicing. Maybe it was with somebody you were afraid of more than you were in love with. Maybe it was a stolen kiss. Maybe you did the stealing. What were the circumstances leading up to the kiss? Or, start with the kiss and describe what happened after.

Readings/Assignments for Thursday, April 21, 2005

Important!! Don't forget to send me the rough draft of your final course paper (by e-mail, either as a Word document or RTF file, please) by midnight on Sunday, April 10! Thanks!

Reminder: Class is canceled on Thursday, March 14, as I will be giving an out-of-town poetry reading. This would be an ideal time to work on your third modeling poem/style commentary (due on Thursday, April 21, at our next class meeting), and also work on your second oral presentation on a contemporary volume of poetry (due on Thursday, April 28). Blogs will not be due on Wednesday, April 13, 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, April 13:

Do you recall taking a strong political position? Was there a single moment you can recall when you felt motivated to join a political body, and did that moment lead you down a path through life that embraced those politics? Can you remember when you became "politicized"? Was it accompanied by a strong sense of justice or injustice? Was something wrong that needed to be rectified?

Thursday, April 21, 2005:

Important! Modeling Poem #3 is due today, along with a 250-word discussion of the style traits of the particular poet upon which your poem is modeled. You may model any poet discussed during the course of the semester whose work you haven't already modeled in a prior modeling assignment:

For this class period, please read Mark Doty's volume of poetry, My Alexandria, and Li-Young Lee's volume of poetry, Book of My Nights.

Please also read the following materials contained in the clickable links below, and which will download as PDF documents:

Click here for excerpt from Mark Doty's memoir, Firebird.

Click here for excerpt from Li-Young Lee's memoir, Winged Seed.

And finally, here is your memoir prompt from The Autobiography Box (for blog posts due on Wednesday, April 20):

Who was your best friend at seven years old? Who was your best friend at 11? At 16? At 20? At 30? And who was your biggest enemy at each of these ages? Describe them.