English 414-001
Special Topics in Creative Writing: Poetic Forms
Instr: Taylor, Marilyn
Office: CRT 514; 229-6991
e-mail: mlt@uwm.edu
Office hours:
Course Information: T; 3:30-6:10pm; CRT 468
Course Description
This course will provide an opportunity for student poets to experiment with a variety of traditional and non-traditional poetic forms, and learn to handle a number of the "special effects" that form makes available to you. By way of some interesting writing experiments, you will be encouraged to approach the writing of a poem with a variety of new tools. Weekly writing assignments- all of which will involve a degree of choice on your part- might range from the simple ballad stanza to the "word-game" complexities of the sestina, the pantoum, or the ghazal. Still other assignments will focus on sounds and rhythms, or on such matters as closure, or the significance of the line break in free verse. Most of the poems resulting from these assignments will be discussed in a friendly and constructive workshop setting. Your reading assignments will include (1) the work of contemporary poets whose work demonstrates the successful use of form; (2) some selected readings on matters of rhythm, meter, sound, and patttern.
Specific Requirements:- The creation of a manuscript consisting of approximately 10 pages of original poetry in a variety of forms, carefully revised and polished
- Active participation in workshop discussion
- Active participation in discussion of the assigned readings
- An 4 to 6 page paper on the place of form in contemporary poetry
Required Texts:
Strong Measures: Contemporary American Poetry in Traditional Forms, Dacey & Jauss, eds.
The New Book of Forms: a Handbook of Poetics, Lewis Turco
Also Recommended:
The Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms, Alex Preminger, ed.
Claims for Poetry, Donald Hall, ed.
Poetic Meter and Poetic Form, Paul Fussell, Jr.
The Complete Rhyming Dictionary, Clement Wood, ed.
