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Anne Sexton poems for Monday

Anne Sexton is awesome. She and Plath were friends and mutual admirers. I recommend the following poems:

"The Truth the Dead Know"

"Her Kind"

"The Room of My Life"

Sylvia Plath

For Friday, we'll read three poems by the dynamic poetic powerhouse Sylvia Plath, who during her too-brief life created a rich and riveting body of work. Please read each of the following poems with care (twice if possible):

The title poem from Plath's first collection, "The Colossus."

And two poems from her second collection, the posthumously published Ariel: "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus."

 Sylvia Plath the woman

Sylvia Plath the muse      

("What Sylvia Plath Taught Me" by Summer Pierre)

If you're interested in exploring the question of Sylvia Plath's choice to deploy elaborate, exaggerated Holocaust imagery in the extended metaphors of some of her best known poems from Ariel, quite a bit of critical work has been done on this question, including "'The Boot in the Face': The Problem of the Holocaust in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath," which is fairly critical of Plath's choices and "'Black Phones': Postmodern Poetics in the Holocaust Poetry of Sylvia Plath" by Matthew Boswell, which explores different critical perspectives on Plath's Holocaust imagery, and some poetic and artistic contexts of her choice to use these images, without necessarily taking a side.

Howl, parts i and ii––Optional reading for Thursday

Allen Ginsberg's Howl, parts i and ii

And don't forget your required reading: "America" and "Supermarket in California" in the blue coursepacket.

Ron Padgett poems

The Ron Padgett poems and the Ted Berrigan poem for tomorrow are in the blue course packet. Here's another optional Ron Padgett poem––"How to Be Perfect"––if you're interested. It's longish but reads quickly, and it includes some pretty good advice. It also has some resonances with "How to Live" by Charles Harper Webb.

A poetry reading flyer made by Joe Brainard,

a close friend of both Berrigan and Ron Padgett

Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks

It’s 2016 and you’re part of a group getting ready to create a monument to Gwendolyn Brooks somewhere in Chicago for her centenary in 2017. First, decide what poem (or segment of a poem) of hers you would choose to include on her monument. Also contemplate what elements of her biography you would highlight. Deliberate and decide, creating a rough sketch of the poem (or poem segment) and biography. You have 250 words total to work with, words that will be added to either a plaque with Brooks’s image or grace a statue representing her likeness. Be ready to discuss why your group chose the poem and the biographical details you chose.

Second, the major donor for the Brooks monument has created a fund to replicate a smaller version the monument at her alma mater, University High School in Urbana Illinois. The mini-monument can either be a 3x5 foot plaque or a statue no more than 4 feet tall (which could be placed on a pedestal). Spend ten minutes walking around the campus at Uni (inside and/or outside) and choose a location for the mini-monument and a rationale for its location. 

Why Slam... Is a Good Thing

"Why Slam Causes Pain and Is a Good Thing" by Bob Holman

Dorothy Parker, optional poems

Two optional poems by Dorothy Parker: "A Well-Worn Story" and "A Portrait"

Also, sign up for Public Poetry Project presentations for third period and fifth period.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

             

Compare the speaker of “I, Being Born a Woman” with the speaker of “Love Is Not All.” What do they have in common, if anything? How are they different? Is it possible that this could be the same speaker, in very different moments? Why or why not?

Claude McKay

In-class individual writing for “Harlem Dancer”: In what specific ways does the speaker set himself apart from the other audience members who watch the dancer? Why do you think he makes a point to do this in the poem? 

Portrait of Claude McKay, addressed to James
Weldon Johnson, "my...esteemed fellow craftsman."

Group work: First, briefly discuss "Harlem Dancer": What do you think the dancer’s situation is? (Where does she work? What is her life like? How is she different from and/or similar to the audience that consumes her performance?) How does the speaker transform or elevate her situation and/or performance? 

Then discuss the questions below for either "To the White Fiends" or "America"

“To the White Fiends”

• Summarize the message or argument of this poem, as you see it. Be sure to attend to the way the poem’s ideas shift as it develops.
• Is this a threat? Or is it a rebuke? Or something else? How does the second half of the poem change the threat that may be seen in the first half? Does the threat still remain, or is it diffused?
• Does this poem remind you of any poem we’ve read so far this semester? If so, which and how? If not, does it call to mind any other poem, story, or song?

“America”

• Which America does McKay focus on? What details call this version of America into being?
• What aspects of America does the poem notinclude or focus on in the “she” described in the poem? (Keep in mind when you answer this that the poem was written in 1921).
• How do you read the last four lines? What future does McKay’s speaker imagine for America, and how do you imagine this future might come about, in his mind?
• Does this poem remind you of any other poem you’ve ever read? If so, which and how? If not, does it call to mind any other story, song, etc.?

T. S. Eliot in-class writing

“I love to tweak the Eliot fans by referring to their guy as the best poet ever to come out of Missouri, when of course he spent his whole life pretending he’d been born and raised in the Norcesterwich district of Cheltenhamfordshire.” – Michael Bérubé

               

1. Answer one of the following questions about “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”:

• How do you feel about Prufrock? Is he sympathetic? Can you identify with him? What sort of figure is he? Is he poignant, or pathetic, or both?
• Is this an entirely serious poem, or is there some comic aspect? If so, where do you see it? 
• Does the title of the poem seem important? How? Explicate the name "J. Alfred Prufrock" a bit in light of the mood, details, and concerns of the poem.
• What's going on with women in this poem?

2. Does The Waste Land seem to take place in the same world as “Prufrock”? Why or why not? Offer some detail from the poem(s) as you discuss this question.

A practice mini-final and a small poll

First, complete your practice mini-final for today. I’ll give you fifteen minutes, and if you don't completely finish, don't worry. Try to at least complete the first two sections. Record the answers for your exam either in your in-class writing googledoc or in your notebook. But if you complete it on paper, be sure to bring it to class next Monday (April 30), when we’ll be going over the answers together.

After you’ve completed the exam, please take this brief and anonymous poll.

H.D. the Poet

Which of the poems of H.D. that we read for today was your favorite and why? What was your favorite image from this favorite poem?

Mina Loy

“Poetry is prose bewitched, a music made of visual thoughts, 

  the sound of an idea.”
                                                                         – Mina Loy

Mina Loy, young and stunning, and Mina Loy,
old and stunning.

Answer the following questions in your in-class writing doc:

1. What are the first three adjectives that come to mind to describe Songs to Joannes by Mina Loy?
2. Write a brief, straightforward prose version of the story of the speaker and her relationship with Joannes. What happened? You can use your imagination, but try to draw on details from the poem and the general mood of the poem as much as you can.

And, if you have time, answer this question briefly:

• Are you glad you read this poem, or not? (Or are you not sure?) Why and/or why not?

Adjectives from former students: lonely, passionate, moody, musing, lusty, long, oblique, helter-skeleter, convoluted, spermatatzoic, dark, celestial, sexual, physical, bloody, erotic, nostalgic, thin, confused/confusing, unprocessed, fantastic

Mina Loy discussion questions:

Are there romantic moments in this poem? Where?

Are there cynical moments in this poem? Where?

Where do we see sad moments?

Where do we see funny or absurd moments?

Do you find some moments gross? Where? Why do you think Loy included those?

Does this poem seem modern to you? How so? How not?

Why do you think Loy chooses to seem so brainy and use so many difficult words when writing about romantic love? 

Robert Frost

“[Frost’s] poems, read carelessly and in search of platitudes, often seem to support the view [of Frost as a ‘New England sage’].” – Cary Nelson

In your in-class writing google doc: Do you think the above observation is true? Did you find the Frost poems more complicated than you anticipated? Choose and discuss one specific poem as an example.