Instr:                  Susan Firer
Office:               CRT 576,   229-6993
e-mail:                sfirer@uwm.edu
Office hours:    by appointment

Course Information:                   MWF   11:30am   CRT 468
 

Course Description

In Whitman's Children we will try to answer the question Lawrence Ferlinghetti asks in "Populist Manifesto": Where are Whitman's wild children.... We will study several contemporary writers, looking at ways their works extend, converse with, separate from, and in some cases transform Walt Whitman's literary legacy. For those who haven't been exposed to Whitman's writings before, we'll start with a review of the 1855 edition of LEAVES OF GRASS. We'll consider collections by Adrienne Rich, Galway Kinnell, Lucille Clifton, and, of course, Allen Ginsberg. We'll spend the last half of the session looking at a great sampling of contemporary writers who are Whitman's literary offspring; including Ted Berrigan, Frank O'Hara, Mary Oliver, Ferlinghetti, Lorca, Neruda, Olds, Bukowski, and others.

Required Texts:
THE PORTABLE WALT WHITMAN, Edited by Mark Van Doren
THESE ARE MY RIVERS: New and Selected Poems 1955-93, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
DARK FIELDS OF THE REPUBLIC: Poems 1991-1995, Adrienne Rich
YOU GET SO ALONE AT TIMES; THAT IT JUST MAKES SENSE, Charles Bukowski
THE GOLD CELL, Sharon Olds
good woman: poems & a memoir 1969-80, lucille clifton
SELECTED POEMS, Galway Kinnell
HOWL, Allen Ginsberg

 On Reserve:
AN ATLAS OF THE DIFFICULT WORLD, Adrienne Rich
IMPERFECT THIRST, Galway Kinnell
THE COMPLETE POEMS, Anne Sexton
SELECTED POEMS, Frank O'Hara
AMERICAN PRIMITIVE, Mary Oliver

Grades will be based on:
attendance and participation (25%),
quizzes and assignments (25%),
oral report (25%),
final project (25%.

Requirements:
Completion of all assigned readings and assignments, participation in class discussions, a final project tied to the concerns of the class, and an oral report.

More than two absences will negatively affect your grade. There is no final examination.