English / Comp Lit 288: Postwar American Poetry (1945-1975)
Charles Bernstein
Fall 2009
T/Th 1:30-2:50
FBH 222

Introduction
Requirements
Wreading listserve archive
posts to wreading@mailman.ssc.upenn.edu

back to first class

18. (Nov. 10) Allen Ginsberg
Hoover: poems and poetics
Ginsberg at PennSound: "Howl" (start with earlier recordings), poss. the first reading on the site.
Ginsberg poems on-line: "America",  Howl, Parts I & II  [Repondent: Lei], "Howl" text from LION,   A Supermarket in California, [Repondent: Dare-Attanasio]"Witchita Vortex Sutra," "Kaddish" [both LION]
"Footnote to Howl" (or at LION); audio (1959)
Furhter Reading/listening:
John Cage's "Writing through Howl"  [Response: Fogel]
Ginsberg web site: "Sunflower Sutra" & "Lion for Real" see also Naropa Audio Archive,  AllenGinsberg.Org
•Write your own commentary on any one of the poems, giving as much styllistic and formal detail as possible.
•Compare the experience of listening to the recordings to reading the work on the page. In other words: discuss the performances.
Wreading:
•Write an imitation of “Howl” taking place in the present time.

Nov. 10 at KWH 11am: Dmitri Golynko, Russian Poet; and immediately after class at 4pm there will be another Russian poetry event, in memory of / tribute to Alexie Parshchikov in Cohen 402.

19. (Nov. 12) Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Philip Whalen
Kerouac, Corso, and Whalen in Hoover
Kerouac audio: esp. "Blues & Haiku"
Kerouac (protected)--
"Charlie Parker" with Steve Allen
"American Haiku" (free version on YouTube) (with Al Cohn and Zoot Sims.); text (aka "Some Western Haikus) at LION [Response: Alles]
on Steve Allen (YouTube)
"Haiku Berkeley"
Kerouac Paris Review Interview (1968)
Kerouac on Buckley
Philip Whalen
[many poems at LION]
Leslie Scalapino introduction to Collected
Mark Other Place, a chapbook
"True Confessions", illustrated by Keith Abbott
"Sourdough Mountain Lookout" [Repondent: McDonald]
further reading: Poetry Fnd selection and bio
•Compare the sound of a single poem of three different poets from this week's reading.
•Kerouac and Whalen are both poets strongly influences by Zen Buddhism. How does this manifest itself in their work.
•Improvisation is another strong feature of all three poets: how does this show up in the work. What is the relation of jazz?
•Compare these three poets to Ginsberg, then to Guest or Schuyler or Ashbery?
•All three are associated with the counter culture of the 60s: how is this manifest in the style of thier poems?
Wreading:
•Substitution (2): "7 up or down." Take a poem and substitute another word for every noun, adjective, adverb, and verb; determine the substitute word by looking up the index word in the dictionary and going 7 up or down, or one more, until you get a syntactically suitable replacement.

20. (Nov. 17) Amiri Baraka & Gil Scott-Heron
Hoover poetry and poetics
Baraka at PennSound
here's a brief selected from diff. periods, all from LION:
"Preface to a 20 Volume Suicide Note", "Notes for  Speech" "Black Dada Nihilismus" [MAP on poem] audio& DJ Spooky mix) (fm Preface to a 20 Vol. Suicide Note, 1957)
"The Politics of Rich Painters", "Duncan Spoke of A Process", "Political Poem", "A Poem for Speculative Hipsters" (audio) (Dead Lecturer 1964)
"Black Art" [MAP on the poem], "Ka 'Ba", "Poem for Half-White College Students" (audio) from Black Arts '65/'66
"It's Nation Time" (1970)
"Today" "At the National Black Assembly" from Hard Facts (mid 1975)
Am/Trak (1979)
"Afro-American  Lyric" (1979, frm Poetry for the Advanced)
"Lowcoup" (he later used "Lowku" "Blue Monk" from Funk Lore 1996
"Somebody Blew Up America" (2001)
[Responsdent: Alles, Lei]
Gil Scott-Heron:
audio for these five here (protected)
text: The Revolution Will not Be Televised & audio [Repondent: Cuchanski]
text: Winter in America & video
text: Enough
text: Paint It Black
text: Who’ll Pay Reparations on My Soul (song?): what is the difference
•Compare each poet in terms of familiar language/unfamiliar language: give examples.
•Discuss Baraka's performances in terms of its political and racial forms and contents; what is the social meaning of the rhythms?
•Discuss the forms of the poems.
•What is the politics of the choice of forms? Is it possible to consider Baraka’s form/style/rhetoric apart from it's content? Can invective (not the same as anger) be considered an aesthetic that gives pleasure (maybe not if you feel you are the subject of the invective or maybe so anyway)? Is it possible to like a poetry primarily because of the political views expressed, or to like it irrespective of those views, or to necessarily dislike poems who views you dislike?  Is it useful to read Baraka’s poetry as part of the political history he tracks, responds to, transforms, as a way to understand this political history? Thinking of a number of provocative poems read so far this semester: is it better to react viscerally (including negatively) to the provocations or to aestheticize or historicize them?
•Scott-Heron is a singer-songwriter, lyricist, poet? What sense does it make to include him with mostly text-based poets in this class? Is he a poet or a lyricist? How does his work resemble/influence later developments in hip-hop and rap?
Wreading:
•Write a political poem on a current issue.
::Be sure to comment on your results and post to the listserv.

Novemer 18 Christian Bok at KWH, 6pm

21. (Nov. 19). Jayne Cortez & Audre Lorde
Cortez in Hoover
Cortez (protected audio): "Rape": text in Hoover [Repondent: Cuchanski]
Audre Lorde: (note Collected Lorde is avail. via LION, links here to open web versions where possible)
"Poetry Is Not a Luxury"
More Lorde poetics
"Love Poem"
"Blackstudies"
"Coal" (on "Coal")
"The Black Unicorn"
"A Song for Many Movements": text, audio
"Power"; see note in this web posting of the poem [Repondent: Low]
"Electric Slide Boogie" cp to O'Hara
For the Record
Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference (1980)

In Cortez's poem "Rape": how does the form contribute to the message? What is the message? What does this work do as a poem differently than an essay on the same topic? Compare to Adrienne Rich's "Rape" (read earlier in the semester) & to Clayton Eshleman's "Hardball." For background info on the subject of the poem, see Wikepedia article on Garcia and on Little. Then compare to Lorde's "Power." In Lorde's "For the Record -- who is Eleainor Bumpers (to whom the poem is dedicated)"; in "Power" -- who is Clifford Glover? How does the poems work vs news account. What about the contrast between Bumpers and Indira Gandhi in "For the Record"?
Do these poems hold up "as poems" outside the immediate political issues that generated them? Do the political issues still seem pertinent? What would it mean for a poem to "hold up" beyond its immediate time of composition and subject matter? Is there is a difference between poetry and rhetoric?
Wreading:
•Choose of social issues of the present as exemplified in a news story and write a poem based on this.
•Substitution (3): Find and replace. Systematically replace one word in the source poem with another word or string of words.  Perform this operation serially with the same source text, increasing the number of words in the replace string. 

22. (Nov. 24) Helen Adam & Ronald Johnson
Helen Adam at PennSound: Susan Howe's Pacifica Radio Program, 1977-1978 performing her work, and in conversation with Susan Howe and Charles Ruas, one hour: MP3
& these poems: Fair Young Wife, The House o’ the Mirror, A Tale Best Forgotten, Counting Out Rhyme, Song  for a Sea Tower, Fair Young Wife, Miss Laura, The Chestnut Tree, Cheerless Junkie’s Song (watch on YouTube) [Respondent: Barnes]
Ronald Johnson:
Selinger intro
from Ark
from Paradise Lost: erased pages of Milton poem
Further reading by Johnson (optional):
BEAMS 21, 22, 23, the Song of Orpheus
BEAM 30, the Garden from ARK: The Foundations (1980)
from The Shrubberies (2001) + another
•How does Adam's use of traditional ballads fit into the "postmodern" context of her poetry friends, such as Robert Duncan? Are these poems traditional? Are they "songs" or poems" or what is formally significant (if anything) about that issue/question/distinction.
•Discuss the visual dimension of the Ronald Johnson poems. Erasure is an active poetic technique in radi os? How is this possible?
Wreading:
Apply Johnson's erasure approach to Adam.

Thanksgiving

23. Dec. 1 John Wieners & Ted Berrigan & David Bromige
Weiners and Berrigan in Hoover
Wieners: optional -- more  at LION
Wieners -- at PennSound -- esp. "Poems for Painters" with text at end [Repondent: Lei]
Bromige: Selection, plus "My Daddy's at His Office Now" [Respondent: Barnes]
Bromige at PennSound:
My Poetry (5:25) MP3 (NOTE: cut is missing about 10 seconds of the poem)
My Compensations (26:24) MP3
Berrigan: good intro at Poetry Foundation page
Go back to key poem profiler terms and profile each of these poets -- not filling out the form but summarizing the results.
Wreaidng::
Write a Berrigan-like sonnet or two, pouching material exclusively from the semester's readings.

24. Dec. 3 John Cage and Jackson Mac Low, (& Poetics)
intro to cut-ups:
William Burroughs on cut-ups & Brion Gysin on cut-ups
Burroughs/Gysin from The Third Mind
Cage: Hoover
4'33":   David Tudor/YouTube;   Symphony
"Lecture on  Nothing" (1959):: LION (note: use the graphic pages rather than the plain text)
"Indeterminacy" #6; futher reading (optional): full web version of work
Mac Low:
my intro
Hoover
3d Biblical Poem (1955) and brief account here
Selection from Representative Works  ]Repondent: LaMarre to "1st Light Poem"]
Mac Low audio at PennSound:
LINEbreak
"Black Tarantula Gatha"(scroll down)
recommended: Radio Reading Project
•What happens to originality when poems are composed of “found” material, as in Mac Low and Cage. What happens to intentionality if poems are composed by systematic procedures? Is this a good thing?
•Discuss the poetics articulated by the poets in their LINEbreak interview by Mac Low and by Cage in the "Lecture on Nothing" and in the Hooever Poetics section. What does Cage mean by "nothing"?
•Compare reading vs. hearing the poets.
•What is the role of performance in these works? (same questions for following poets ...)
•Acrostic chance: Use the anthology or assigned books as your source text. Use title of book or poem as acrostic key phrase.  For each letter of key phrase go to page number in book that corresponds (a=1, z=26) and copy as first line of poem from the first word that begins with that letter to end of line or sentence.  Continue through all key letters, leaving stanza breaks to mark each new key word.  (Cf.: Jackson Mac Low's Stanzas for Iris Lezak.)  Variations include using author's name as code for reading through her or his work, using your own or friend's name, picking different kinds of books for this process, devising alternative acrostic procedures.
Note: Lazarus cut-up engine to perform a similar task automatically; also engines at "Language Is a Virus:" Cut Up Machine,  Slice-n-Dice,  Exquisite Cadavulator, God's Rude Wireless. And: Ron Starr's travesty engine.

25. Dec. 8 Hannah Weiner
my intro
Weiner in Hoover
Weiner at PennSound:
March MP3 (26:48)  Note: text begins here in PEPC edition: follow along!
recommended: LINEbreak interview, Niblock film, reading/listening in/around EPC and PennSound pages ...
Is The Clairvoyant Journal extending the diary/journal genre or doing something else? How would you describe Wiener's subject matter? Is that suitable material for poetry? What is the role of performance in this work?  What role does voice play in the work? How does Weiner's use of three voices relate to some of the other poets read this semester?
Wreading: Write your response in a three-voice Weiner-like narrative. Incorporate your everyday life as it interrupts your narrative. Perform with friends.

26. Dec. 10 David Antin (Last Class)
Antin at PennSound:
>The Principle of Fit, II (1980) (Part I) (26:32): MP3
>The Principle of Fit, II (Part II) (25:49): MP3
>A Conversation with David Antin, questions from Penn students (2004) (1:11:21) MP3
Antin in Hoover
"The Noise of Time" (from Boston Review)
from Tuning (New Directions, 1984)
"Words to the Wise" (2009)
recommended:
an excerpt from A Conversation with David Antin by Antin and Charles Bernstein
"Some Questions about Modernism" (1974)
•Are Antin’s works poems?
•What is the role of performance in his works?
Wreading::
Talk poem: record yourself talking a poem and transcribe.

As a final optional submission, please give your response to the course, which exercises and questions you found most helpful, what was your reaction to posting all your work to the list? What about the amount of reading required for each class? Enough? Too Much? What did you like least about the course, what most (what would you like more of, or less of)? On the listserve: what did you think about posting all work to the list as opposed to giving it prviately to the instructor? Thinking back on all the poets, list your overall favorites and state your reason for your preference. You needn't post this response to the list; if you prefer, send it directly to m

please try to have all work completed by the last class or email me for extension.

 

Visiting Poets: Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop, Robert Grenier, Jerome Rothenberg. A session will be spent on each of these poets, who will also come to visit the class.

Please be sure to notify me of any broken links.
Please note: The syllabus remains under construction through the semster. Stay tuned for changes.

1. (Sept. 10): Introduction

2. (Sept. 15) Charles Olson
Robert Creeley: Introduction to Charles Olson: Selected Writings II
Hoover: Olson's poetry and poetics
(Note Maximus is on-line at LION_
"Projective Verse" (1950)
Creeley on Olson
La Préface (c. 1946) (LION)
The Kingfishers (6:31)(audio/partial); text (1949): "The Kingfishers" (and at LION); my commentary
"In Cold Hell, in Thicket" via LION(also in  Hoover)
Maximus "Letter 6" via LION
Poetry Foundation: bio; poems:
The Songs of Maximus: Song 1
The Songs of Maximus: Song 2
I, Maximus of Gloucester, to You (text in Hoover)
Maximus, to Gloucester: Letter 2
Maximus, to himself (text in Hoover)
Extracts from Maximus (including visual pages)
Audio: Olson at PennSound:
SF 1957: I, Maximus of Gloucester, to You [I.1] (4:01)
Vancouver, 1963: Maximus, to Himself  ("I have had to learn the simplest things / last ...") [I:52-53] (2:26)
"Kingfishers" :MP3 (incomplete)
Onward (optional reading):
"Proprioception"
Creeley on Olson: Charles Olson: In Cold Hell, in Thicket,  Charles Olson: The Maximus Poems, 1–10,    Some Notes on Olson's Maximus,   Introduction to Charles Olson: Selected Writings I,  A Foot Is to Kick With,   An Image of Man . . .":  Working Notes on Charles Olson's Concept of Person, Charles Olson's Masterwork
•Poem Profiler self-test: fill out the profiler in the abstract, to reflect your own preferences
•Pick the poem you like best and use the profiler on this poem.
•"The Kingfishers" can be seen as an inaugural poem for the postwar error and for the New American poetry. In what ways does this mark its historical moment? Also in "I, Maximus ... to You," Olson writes about "pejorocracy" (the worsening rule of government): what is his political and social attitude? Who is the "you" in this poem? What is "polis" in Maximus Letter 6 ("polis is eyes"?)
•"Projective Verse" is one of the most influential essays of the period. What's "new" about it (:if anything), what seems "old" about it now (if anything)? How does the essay connect to the poems and how not?
•The spoken/oral marks many of these poems: discuss this approach versus more traditional "literary" work
•What are you able to say about the poetics or the poetic values these poets articulate?
•Discuss Olson's readings via the audio recordings: how does it compare to the printed text?
Wreading:
•Take all our part of your journal response and cast is into a "projecctive poem" (for example cast your response as a spoken rather than written work; break your phrases up into a "field" arrangement all over the page ...
•Write a poem using some of the techniques you have gleaned from “Projective Verse”: line as breath, parataxis. Write a poem with the visual layout and “breath” breaks of Olson's “field” poems, possibly using materials from anthology or web poems, e.g. score “Projective Verse” as a projective poem.
::Be sure to comment on your results.

3. (Sept. 17) Robert Duncan & Denise Levertov
Hoover: poetry and poetics for Duncan and Levertov
Duncan on  PennSound
“My Mother Would Be a Falconress” (text and .ra from Poets.org: you need to download RealMedia player)
"Often I Am Permitted" (text) (text in Hoover too): & audio: San Francisco State University 1959: MP3 &
Berkeley/1965: MP3
Duncan Poems at Poetry Foundation:
A Poem Beginning with a Line from Pindar
An African Elegy
Bending the Bow
Such Is the Sickness of Many a Good Thing
Up Rising (Passages 25)
*
Further reading (optional):  Duncan's “The Homosexual in Society”
Cary Nelson on "Often I Am Permitted"
Three view of "My Mother Would Be a Falconress"
Levertov Bio at data base "20th C. American Poets [note link to poems is dead but you can find the list of her many on-line books here]; start with Collected Early Poems
•Pick two poems you like best and least. Use the profiler on the two poems.
•Does it make a difference in your reading of the poems by Duncan and Levertov that they one is written by a woman and the other a man? How? If these were written by the other gender, how would that change the meaning?
•Does Duncan's being gay make a difference; see for example his important essay "Homosexual in Society" from 1944; note that thsi essay caused John Crowe Ransom to cancel the publication of Duncan's "African Elegy" from the Kenyon Review. Does that affect the meaning of the poem?
•Duncan writes: "The grace of the poem, the voice, comes from a will that strives to waken us from our own personal will, [the poet] strives to waken to the will of the poem, even as the poems strives to waken that will" ("Essay in Essential Autobigraphy, Truth & Life of Myth). Discuss, thinking of both Duncan's sense of the poem as dervivative and Spicer sense of the poem as received as if by radio transmission (see below for Spicer!), along with Olson's insistence on avoiding the "lyrical interference of the ego."
Wreading Experiments:
•Reverse the order of the words line for line.
•Translate one of the poems into a totally contemporary idiom, including references and diction.
::Be sure to comment on your results and post to the listserv.

4. (Sept. 22) Robert Creeley
<digital versions of Creeley's poems on LION via library e-resources>
Creeley introduction
Creeley in Hoover: poetry and poetics
Creeley Poetics:
"A Note"
"A Sense of Measure"
"Poems Are a Complex"
"I'm given to write poems" [also: pdf]
*
Creeley selection at the Poetry Foundation:
& here is the audio for most of those:
A Token (0:19)
The Warning (0:23) (text)
The Language (1:07), The Language (1:15) [Response: Fogel]
The Measure (0:26)
*
Additional Creeley Selection
*
Creeley PennSound:
LineBreak Program (my conversations with Creeley)
various readings of "I Know A Man"
Oh No (0:36); Oh No (0:31) [Repondent: Millone]
For Love (8:21)
The Warning (0:15) (text)
A Tally (1:31); A Tally (1:33)
Words (0:47) text
The Plan Is the Body (from Away) (4:30) text
Anger (6:10)  text
The Hole (3:05)
A Piece (0:16)
Oh No (0:31)
A Tally (1:33)
Further reading (opional): Was That a Real Poem or Did You Just Make It up Yourself?•Pick the poem you like best and least; discuss.
•Which of the poets you have read till now come the closest to spoken English and which the least (give specific examples)? Is this a value you like or don't like in poetry?
•Pick a poem give a brief summary of the content. How is this summary different from the poem?
• How about the relation of Creeleys’ poetics to his poems? Discuss Creeley's poetics: how to they depart from a more traditional idea of poetry?
•What function does Creeley’s short lines serve? On diction: which poems come closest to spoken American English, which the least? Is this a value you like or don’t like in poetry?
•What is the role of improvisation and jazz in Creeley's poetry and poetics?
•Discuss the audio recordings: how does it compare to the printed text?
Wreading:
• Write a Creeley “thin” poem, that is one with very short lines OR take a poem with longer lines from the anthology or assinged poems/books and rebreak the lines in the manner of Creeley. ::Be sure to comment on your results.

Note: Reading at KWH (9/22) at 6pm: Kathleen Fraser

5. (Sept. 24) Frank O'Hara
note extensive critical materials at Gale LRC
Hoover O'Hara (and "Personism: A Manifesto" in Poetics section of anthology)
O'Hara: audio: "Poem"   ("Lana Turner Has Collapsed")

• (Same question for Ashbery): It is often said that these poets work on the “surface” in contrast with the “deep” poetics of some of the poets read last week. What is meant by this? Which of these poems comes closest to speech/vernacular? What kind of allusions are made? How does the comic work in these poems? Can serious poems be funny? Compare these poems to the previous poems in terms of the use of the everyday or commonplace? Does trivial subject matter make for trivial poems?
•Who is Lana Turner and what role does she play in O'Hara's "Poem" (two images may help: still from Peyton Place (1957); still from Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life (1959). In "The Day Lady Died" talk about the role of Billie Holiday (eg "Lady Day"). Contrast the use of these two figures.
Wreading:
• Write a poem in a “novel” form: index, table of contents, obituary, catalog, resume, course description, an advertisement for an imaginary or real product, an instruction manual, a travel guide, a quiz or examination, etc.
• Write a letter poem, as O’Hara’s “Day Lady Died" poems, possibly mentioning the names of friends, in the informal manner of O’Hara’s “Personism”.
::Be sure to comment on your results.

6. (Sept. 29) John Ashbery
note extensive critical materials at Gale LRC
Hoover
Europe (via LION)
The Tennis Court Oath
"The Recital" from Three Poems, "A Wave" "Haiku": pdf
Paradoxes and Oxymorons
Chinese Whispers [Repondent: LaMarre]
"The Skaters" (full poem via LION, part 1 in Hooever); Bernstein on this poem [Repondent: McDonald]
*
Ashbery at PennSound:
"How Much Longer Will I Be Able to Inhabit the Divine Sepulcher..." (4:29): MP3; text (via LION)
Rivers and Mountains (3:57): MP3, text;
The Instruction Manual (5:28): MP3, text
"They Dream Only of America" (1:09): MP3; text (via LION)
text: "Daffy Duck in Hollywood": audio: MP3
text: These Lacustrine Cities: audio: MP3
text: Soonest Mended: audio: MP3
text Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape: audio MP3; discussion of the poem
text: And Ut Pictura Poesis Is Her Name audio: MP3
*
Poetry Foundation page
:::If you find Ashbery frustrating: (1) run the poem profiler on his work in general first (2) try to account for how the work is made (eg collage, etc) not "what it means"
>>See first question above for O'Hara and apply to Ashbery?
What similarities and what differences do you see between O'Hara and Ashbery/ Ashbery and the other poets we've read so far this semester?
Which of these Ashbery poems do you like best/least?
Discuss the role of whimsey and wandering (meandering) thought in these poems?
Do you find these poems difficult? Is difficulty a problem?
Take a stanza and try to paraphrase. Compare to what is not paraphrasable.
What kind of references and allusions does Ashbery use?
Use Poem Profiler to assess the tone and mood of some of the poems.
Wreading:
•Erasure: Take a poem and cross out most of the words on each poem, retype what remains as your poem
•Substitution (1) : "Mad libs." Take a poem and put blanks in place of three or four words in each line, noting the part of speech under each blank. Fill in the blanks being sure not to recall the original context.
::Be sure to comment on your results and post to the listserv.

7 (Oct. 1). Barbara Guest and James Schuyler
note extensive critical materials at Gale LRC
Schuyler and Guest in Hoover and at EPC pages
Schuyler at PennSound
Good intro: BBC interview/reading
Schuyler:

My Guest intro: Composing Herself
Guest: Selection from Messerli anthology
PennSound:
LineBreak show (my conversation with Guest)
Passage (for John Coltrane) (1:21): MP3 [Repondent: Millone]
"An Emphasis Falls on Reality" & MP3
>>
•Detail the visual images in your favorite poems for this week. Then detail the psychological states/evocations in these poems.
•Which poems are most like someone speaking and which the least? How does that affect the value of the poems.
•Discuss a  poems or two in terms of "the ordinary."
•What is the significance of jazz for Guest in "Passage." Compare to Creeley's engagement with jazz.
•What does "reality" mean for these two poets?
•Might either of both of these poets be understood as "dometic"? Is this useful/harmful?
Wreading:
•Negation/Opposites: Negate every phrase or sentence in the poem or in some way substitute opposite words for selected words in the source text: "I went to the beach" becomes "I went to the office"; "I got up" becomes "She sat down"; "I will" become "I will note", etc.
•Write a Schulyer-like poem articulating the nonevents of the everyday (as “Crystal Lithium" in Hoover).
::Be sure to comment on your results.

8. (Oct. 6) Something Wonderful May Happen
film screening: film on some of the poets of the New York School
reading: Rothenberg, see Oct. 8

October 7: Jerome Rothenberg & Jeffrey Robinson panel at 5pm / reading at 7:15pm at KHW -- on/from Poems for the Millennium 3 (19th century)

9. (Oct. 8) Jerome Rothenberg class visit
Reading: Triptych (at bookstore) [Repondent: McDonald]
The Burning Babe & Other Poems, with poems by Jerome Rothenberg (Granary Books, 2005): complete book (pdf)
Rothenberg at PennSound: start with LINEbreak and the "Horse Songs" as well as reading from the Tryptych.
Jed Rasula on  Rothenberg (Gale)
Further reading (optional): Armand Schwerner, selections from The Tablets (recommended I and II); audio on PennSound
•Write three questions for Rothenberg (some of which you will get a chance to ask).Answer your own questions. Answer each other's questions.
How do the images relate to the poems in the Granary book?
On "Poland/1931": discuss the odd juxtaposition of cowboy and Eastern Europen rabbi.
For Khurbn: how is it possible to represent/respond to the events evoked here? Is any writing able to do this? How does Rothenberg approach this troubled question?
Wreading:
•Homolinguistic translation: Take a poem and translate it "English to English" by substituting word for word, phrase for phrase, line for line, or "free" translation as response to each phrase or sentence. Or translate the poem into another literary style or a different diction, for example into -- or out of -- a slang or vernacular.

10. (Oct. 13) Robert Lowell & Adrienne Rich
Later on Oct. 13 at 6pm at KWH, Brazillian poet Régis Bonvicino, reading and conversation, which I will be hosting.
note extensive critical materials on  Lowell and Rich at Gale LRC
Robert Lowell:
"Skunk Hour" with though better audio here (PennKey req).
"For the Union Dead; & audio
History
Man and Wife [Repondent: Kolson]
audio of "The Public Garden" and the text of the poem
"Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket"; audio
additional poems at Poets,Org
Poetry Foundation page
*

Adrienne Rich: at PennSound
"Diving into the Wreck"; Diving Into the Wreck (3:06): MP3 (INCOMPLETE: final section of poem is cut off) [Repondent: Low]
"Rape" (from Diving into the Wreck)
Diving into the Wreck  (1973) [Twentieth Centry American Poetry via library e-recources, where you can also find many of Rich's books]: "Trying to Talk with a Man," "When We Dead Awaken"
"Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law": "Snapshots of a Daugther-In-Law" (8:12): MP3 [Repondent: Rivo]
As Ever (0:32): MP3 [Tribute to Robert Creeley:text of poem]
"When We Dead Awaken" and via JSTOR; & "Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying" (1975)
Further reading (optional): Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (1975), On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose ("Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying": 185-94) (1975), "Compulsory Heterosexuality": pdf
•For each poet, discuss what you find most distinctive (use the Poem Profiler as necessary).
•List favorite/worst poems.
•What kind of allusions are used by these poets?
•Note the mood or tone of several of the poems, citing specific passages.
•In what ways is Rich a traidtional poet and in what ways is she radical, or does neither term apply?
•Characterize the style of "Skunk Hour" (using poem profiler if helpful). Is their a "message" to the poem or is it more about mood or psychological state? What is the poem "about"? How does it compare to the poems of one or two of the poets read earlier?
•In what ways is Lowell's work reflective of his "identity" as heterosexual male "WASP." Does such an identity reading help or hinder the reading of his poems (or neither)?
Wreading:
Recombine: take words and phrases from a poem and recombine them to make a new poem. Use a web cut-up engine:Lazarus cut-up engine to perform a similar task automatically; also engines at "Language Is a Virus:" Cut Up Machine,  Slice-n-Dice,  Exquisite Cadavulator, God's Rude Wireless. And: Ron Starr's travesty engine..

11. (Oct. 15) Larry Eigner
Eigner in Hoover
Grenier Eigner intro (see also Ben Frieldlander's intro at Gale)
Eigner on PennSound (listen to short poem and comment, sections 1 and 2)
from Another Time in Fragments
Eigner in L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E #1 at Eclipse
[Repondents Rivo, Cuchanski and Barnes]
Eigner is a poet of the everyday/common: describe how he articulates this. He was also confined to wheelchair all his life due to cerebral palsy: is this something reflected in the poems? Make a list of the nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives in one or more of the poems. Does this list tell you anything about the work? Read one of the poems out loud three or more times with different tempos and volume (best if this can be done with someone else): describe the results.
Wreading:
•No wave. Retype the target work, without making any changes. Pay special attention to the spacing! Proofread for accuracy. Reflect on the process.
::Be sure to comment on your results.

12. (Oct. 20): no class; please attend Oct. 22 and Oct. 27 readings!
Reading: Bob Perelman: Ten to One (boostore)
Wreading:
Take phrases from the source poem and embed within a narrative. (See Alan Ramón Clinton's Bob Perelman.)

13. (Oct. 22). Bob Perelman class vist
October 22 Rae Armantrout reading at Kelly Writers House at 6pm
Ten to One
Steve Evans intro at Gale
PennSound page: Close Listening interview
• Write three questions for Perelman (some of which you will get a chance to ask).Answer your own questions. Answer each other's questions.
•As Perelman indicates in the introduction, "Autobiography" is made up of language from Mozart, Stendahl, and Shackleton. How does this found language function in the poem? Does it compromise the "originality" of the poem. How can it be an autobiography if it uses other  people's words?
Wreading:
•Pick one poem and paraphrase it line for line. The take these paraphrases and write the poem as a political speech, and op-ed piece, a more traditional poem with beginning, middle,and end.

14. (Oct 27): Robert Grenier class visit
Grenier reading/performance/slide show at 6pm
•Grenier in Hoover
•Grenier at PennSound:  Start with the two Close Listening Radio shows
•Sentences (complete) from Whale Cloth Press. In 2003, twenty-five years after its publication of the original edition of 500 boxed 5" x 8" index cards, Whale Cloth Press has made available a web-based version of this work. Before viewing: read the NOTE on the web version of this poem. Also see: image of the original box.
•"Rough" translations from Drawing/Poems, 2004
•A conversation with Charles Bernstein (Jacket, 2008)
• Write three questions for Grenier (some of which you will get a chance to ask).Answer your own questions. Answer each other's questions.

15. (Oct. 29) Jack Spicer & Robin Blaser
note extensive critical materials at Gale LRC
Spicer in Hoover
Spicer:
Language at LION [Two poems from Language]   [Repondent: Cuchanski]
On dictation from the Vancouver lectures
Spicer at PennSound: listen to the 1975 program/reading of "Language"
Additional poems at Poetry  Foundation  (these two; others optional!):
"Dear Robin" [Repondent: Kolson]
"Ode to Walt Whiman" (after Lorca)
Blaser:
my intro
Blaser poetry selection (note: pp. 442-443 are missing from Dante poem: but here they are)
two short late poems
Further Reading (optional but highly recommended):
Blaser, "Practice of Outside" (LION)
Blaser, "The Violets: Charles Olson and Alfred North Whitehead"  (1983), from The Fire
•Blaser and Spicer are credited with inventing the "serial" poems. In what way are their poems "serial" (ordered not sequentially but in an open-ended way, averting closure)?
•How are Spicer's poems affected by his concept of "dictation"? What is "dictation"?
•What are the sexual/gender politics of Spicer's Lorca?
•Dicuss the discursive elements in Blaser's "Even on Sunday" and his Duncan and Dante "companion" poems. How do these discursive elements work in contrast to the more abstract lyric passages in the poems.
Wreading:
Serial lines: Select one line each from different source poems in the reading this week (or from past weeks). Add sentences lines own composition. Combine into one stanza, reordering to produce different results.

16. (Nov. 3) Sylvia Plath & John Berryman & James Wright
note: we will start with Spicer, continued from last week.
Sylvia Plath: "Daddy" : text, video;  "Lady Lazarus"; "Mad Girl's Love Song" [Repondent: Low; Ariel  [Repondent: Rivko],  furhter reading: collected poems and also here
John Berryman: "Dream Songs" #1 (with audio), 4, 29; 14 ("Life, friends, is boring")
from Poetry Fdn: Dream Song 14 [Repondent: Millone], Dream Song 29, Eleven Addresses to the Lord, Homage to Mistress Bradstreet
Dream  Song #14 ("Life, friends, is boring") text, youtube (recites poem starting at 4:23)
James Wright:[Repondent: Dare-Attanasio]
A Note Left in Jimmy Leonard’s Shack
Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
•Contrast the sytle of these three poets to the work of a few of the poets read earier. Use poem profiler terms for this contrast.
•Does it make a difference that Berryman is a male poet? How would the poems be different if we read them as by a woman?
Wreading:
Substitution (1) : "Mad libs." Take a poem and put blanks in place of three or four words in each line, noting the part of speech under each blank. Fill in the blanks being sure not to recall the original context.

Weds. Nov. 4 at 6: Rosmaire and Keith Waldrop, poetry reading, KWH Arts Cafe

17. (Nov. 5) Rosmarie Waldrop and Keith Waldrop class visit
Reading:
Rosmarie Waldrop, Curves to the Apple: The Reproduction of Profiles, Lawn of Excluded Middle, Reluctant Gravities
Keith Waldrop, The Opposite of Letting the Mind Wander
•Write three questions each for Ketih and Rosmaire Waldrop (some of which you will get a chance to ask). Answer your own questions. Answer each other's questions.
•Pick your own wreading experiment from the list.

Tues., Nov. 10
11am: KWH: Dmitri Golynko, Russian Poet, reading and interview (taped for Close Listening series)
4pm: Cohen 402: tribute to Alexi Parchikov
with Dmitry Golynko, John High, Eugene Ostashevsky, Bob Perelman, Ron Silliman, Charles Bernstein, and Andrew Wachtel. Kevin M. F. Platt will moderate