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MS/HS accelerated 6-12, 1 semester; HS 11-12, 1 semester; or College, 1 quarter

Week I. Introduction. Days 1-5.

· Questionnaire
· Hand-out (editors' notation)
· Resources: http://www.bartleby.com/index.html
· 20th Century American Poetics, Precursors and European Influences (Whitman, The Futurists, Joyce). http://www.bartleby.com/142/18.html
· 20th Century American Poetics, Part I (Eliot, Pound, Lorca) http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html
· Journal introduction; 2 entries assigned

Day 2

· 20th Century American Poetics, Part II (Kerouac, Levertov, O'Hara, Williams, Olson)
· 4 Journal Entries assigned

Day 3

· 20th Century American Poetics, Part III (Bly, Snyder, Laughlin, Ferlinghetti)
· 3 Journal Entries assigned

Day 4

· Writers' Block, Part I. Automatic Writing
· 2 Journal Entries assigned

Day 5

· Writers' Block, Part II. Free Association.
· Hand in journals

Week II. Techniques. Days 6-10.

* Pass out journals

Day 1

· Unwritten Rules
· 2 Journal Entries

Day 2, Line-breaks, stanzas, page-breaks, cantos, and epics.

Day 3, Writing traditional forms, Part I

· History of Metrical Forms
· Couplets
· The Sonnet. http://tech-two.mit.edu/Shakespeare/Poetry/sonnets.html
· 1 Journal Entry

Day 4, Writing traditional forms, Part II.

· Other traditional forms
· Haiku
· The Sestina
· 2 Journal Entries

Day 5. Epigrams

· In-class epigram assignment.
· Hand in journals.
· Extra-credit epigram assignment.

Week III Feeling

Day 1 Comic poetry.

· Return journals.
· Discussion of Koch poems (hand-out)
· 1 journal entry

Day 2 Tragic poetry.

· Discussion of Robert Frost's "Home Burial" (hand-out). http://www.bartleby.com/118/6.html
· 1 journal entry

Day 3 Love poetry.

· Discussion of John Donne's "The Flea." http://www.netpoets.com/classic/022021.htm
· 1 journal entry

Day 4 Political poetry.

· Discussion of sections of Berrigan's Trial.
· 1 journal entry

Day 5. Alienated poetry.

· Discussion of James Wright poems.
· Hand in journals.

Week IV Poetry as Discourse

Day 1. Personism in Action.

· Return journals.
· Epistolary poetry.
· 1 journal entry

Day 2 "Voice"

· Distinction between terminology such as "style," and "voice."
· 1 journal entry

Day 3 Dialogue

· "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," and "The Lover's Reply"
· Group exercise
· 1 journal entry

Day 4 Rhetoric

· Anaphora
· Epistrophe
· 2 journal entries

Day 5 Commentary

· Williams' poems on Brueghel paintings,
· Hand in journal
· Extra-credit assignment: commentary poem.

Week V Other Worlds.

Day 1. Dreams.

· Dreams in poetry.
· Keeping a dream journal.
· 2 journal entries.

Day 2. Fiction: poems as narrative.

· Review: "Home Burial."
· Creating characters.
· 2 journal entries

Day 3. The Movies.

· Open Discussion on "poetic" movies.
· 1 journal entry

Day 4. Genre

· Lecture on the various genre writing in poetry, e.g. SF poetry, L=A=N=G==A=G=E poetry, et. al.
· 1 journal entry

Day 5. Epics: poems as histories or novels.

· Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. (synopsis)
· Virgil's Aeneid. (synopsis)
· Whitman's Leaves of Grass (synopsis)
· Robinson's epical idiom. (synopsis)
· Benet's John Brown's Body. (synopsis)
· Pound's Cantos. (synopsis)
· Hand in journals.
· Extra-credit assignment: write the first canto of an epic.

Week VI Revision and Review.

Day 1.

· Return journals.
· Review of journals.
· Begin portfolio by selecting five to ten favorite journal entries.
· 1 journal entry-list tentative portfolio pieces.

Day 2

· Using Pound's dictum. Highlight "luminous details."
· Underscore inessential verbiage.
· Journal entries, 1 revision for each of one to three portfolio pieces.

Days 3-4

· Plan Day 5's reading.
· Brief lecture on the renaissance 'broadsheet' which has persisted into the 20th century, e.g. campus life, LA, NYC, beatniks, et. al. Advertises and publishes locally, simultaneously.
· Create broadsheet with representative poems for students to circulate to family and peers. If too many poems are desired for broadsheets create multiple broadsheets, i.e. an A broadsheet and a B broadsheet. Work on 11x17 and reduce.
· Continue journal entries of revisions, keeping in mind the audience. Journals should have one entry, a revision, per portfolio piece.

Day 5 First public reading, staged locally in the evening.

· Hand-in journals.
· No Class.

Reading, later in Day 5, early evening, circa 4:30 pm

· Readings from portfolios. Every poet must read 2 poems. Poets with time constraints read first.
· Hand in portfolios.

Week VII-Compilation and Publishing. First Workshops.

Day 1 Chapbooks

· Return journals and portfolios.
· Review portfolios.
· Chapbooks. Titles, tables of contents, and corrections by day five.
· 2 volunteers for tomorrow's workshop.
· Journal entry: select poems for chapbook. Discuss cuts.

Day 2 Workshop.

· Brief lecture on workshop etiquette.
· Workshop two poets' poems.
· 1 Journal entry: select any 3 poems written in this class for publication in a book. Type them out and have them ready for tomorrow, but discuss in your journal why you feel they merit publication.

Day 3 Anthologies

· Hand in selected poems.
· Organize four "manuscripts" of student poems. Create small groups based on the authors.
· In each group, the anthology editor is the student who is first to title the MS to the satisfaction of all authors involved.
· 2 volunteers for tomorrow's workshop.
· 1 journal entry

Day 4. Workshop.

· Workshop two poets' poems.
· 1 Journal entry

Day 5. "Shopping."

· Hand in journals and anthologies.
· Circulate chapbooks so that each poet has someone else's text. @ poet presents one poem from the book received, first citing the author and title. Discussion on how it feels to hear your poems in other voices.
· Hand in chapbooks.

Week VIII-Week X Workshops

Week VIII, Day 1

· Return class materials. Review journals, and explain that the journal, the portfolio, the chapbook, and the anthology are finished projects.
· Listservers, and newsgroups,: "Y2K poetry." Explain what is required when working with the class listserver. Instead of journal entries, students will be graded based on their responses to classmates' work on the listserver. While workshops will continue to meet in the classroom, the listserver will become the workshop's communal-journal. Discuss the rules of participation in the listserver.
· Instead of journal entries, each student is responsible for at least one detailed critique of another student's work per workshop (ergo, a minimum of 15 entries). Said critiques need not be negative, though lauding another's verses should still cite particularly effective lines, et. al..
· Each student is also responsible for posting a minimum of two poems per week to keep conversation going. These may be revisions of earlier work.
· Listserver and class responses can be shared, i.e. these are "published" responses and available for the ongoing discussion. E.g., "its like Anne said in."

Day 2 on Workshop, and listserver entries continue.

No final! Instead, there's an open reading of student work. Like the first week, it is preceded by broadsheet printing, and it is held in the early evening (possibly 3:30), to adjourn before nightfall.

In college semesters, the class meets fewer days, and the lesson plan remains fairly similar. In MS/HS semester variations, there is an extra week of "revision and review," 1 week preparation for a midterm, and 3 weeks extra workshop.

Poetry Writing II begins right where Poetry Writing I leaves off.

Bibliography

Bly, Robert. A Little Book on the Human Shadow.

Eliot, Thomas Stearns. "Tradition and the Individual Talent."

Levertov, Denise. "Some Notes on Organic Form."

O'Hara, Frank. "Personism, a Manifesto."

Olson, Charles. "Projective Verse."

Pound, Ezra. The ABC of Reading.

Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass.

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