English 816-001
Seminar in Poetry Writing: Short Poems or Elegiac Poems
Instr: Liddy, James
Office: CRT 517; 229-5441
e-mail: liddy@uwm.edu
Office Hours: R; 3:00-4:15pm
Course Information: M; 7:30-10:10pm; CRT 468
Course Description
A workshop has many occasions: a deadline for writing, publication by presentation, a critical forum, a learning of texts, an appetite for poetics. Students hand in work regularly, sign it, copy it, and read it in class. They provide oral and, if they wish, written comments on classroom poems. At semester's end students should assemble a portfolio that records progress in poem-writing (20 pages) and a statement on poetics (8 pages). The instructor can advise and warn on particular dimensions of the course; there will be a conference and a reading of tea leaves. More than two unexcused absences will affect the grade; incompletes are discouraged. Process/poetics papers are due on April 23, portfolios on April 30.
There should be three short poems or elegies in the Portfolio. The texts will be part of that direction in the class. Additionally, students will give a report (15 minutes) on one poem from each of the texts: two poems in the portfolio should also be imitations/adaptations of a poem in each book. Grades if attendance is okay: 60% portfolio, 20% discussion and reports, 20% poetics paper.
Remember thy friend inspiration and thy other friend a good first draft.
Texts:
Lorine Niedecker, The Granite Pail
Charles Reznikoff, Complete Poems
