EN-470/670:  Advanced Poetry Writing, Spring 2009

Dr. Susan Swartwout

Office: GB 318-O (hours 3:30 – 5:00 T/R); phone 651-2641, sswartwout@semo.edu

 

Four required texts:

 Two from the bookstore and/or textbook Rentals

Patterns of Poetry: An Encyclopedia of Forms by Miller Williams

The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry edited by Sue Ellen Thompson.

  A book of poetry you chose, written by a very contemporary poet (a book published since 2005), which you will use for your Professional Review.

 • A chapbook from the University Press (your cost is $3), Back of the Envelope by Greg McBride.

 

Suggested reading for advanced writers who want to send out work for publication: A Student’s Guide to Getting Published by Susan Swartwout and Jim Elledge, Pearson/Longman Press.

 

Course Description:  Students will read and practice writing forms of poetry in a discussion-oriented workshop setting. Writing is a Practice, a skill, so we'll be writing weekly. Reading informs our writing, so we'll be reading weekly as well.

 

  Reading: We will read and discuss “traditional” forms as well as marginalized and experimental works. In addition, we will occasionally read essays by poets that impact both writer as creator and audience as market.

 

  Professional review: You will each “adopt” a very contemporary poet (with a book published since 2004)

 1) read one of her or his collections, published in 2004 or after

 2) write a review of the writer’s work (min. 750 words)

WRITING A REVIEW   

Examples of good review format are available at www.raintaxi.com and www.litline.org/ABR/samples.html.

Book Review sample 1

Book review sample 2

    Browse through several books to find a writer whose work piques your interest. Or let’s talk about your interests, and I’ll make a few suggestions. The review is due the week after Spring Break (Week 9).

 

  Writing: Writing for the course will focus on poetry, both free-form and traditional patterns. A portfolio of your work will be developed during the semester. Revisions are a necessary part of any writing course, and the amount of work you invest in your revisions and portfolio will be considered as well as the final draft of the work. Attach all first drafts (not all copies of all drafts) to the back of each final draft of a poem. All pieces included in the final portfolio must have been reviewed by your associates in our workshops or discussed in conference and revised.

Pattern or Form poems: At any workshop during the semester, you will write and turn in for workshop the following form poems: a sestina, a Pindaric Ode of at least 3 stanzas (rhyming or not, you decide, but it must have line-length and/or meter pattern), and a form of your choice. Use your Patterns of Poetry to guide you in format and in selection. Avoid workshopping "blank verse" poems and "haiku" unless you are exquisitely good at them. Otherwise, please practice these lovely but scathingly abused patterns at home alone.

 

  Journal: Keep a journal in which you will write at least half a page at least three times a week (39 to 42 entries or more). I have some good prompts, if you’d like to try them. Just ask for a copy. Journals are a history of your life as well as a goldmine for poem ideas. The journals will be included in your portfolio. Please do not recycle a journal from another class or another period in your history, riveting though that journal may have been.

 

  Discussion: Participation in workshop discussion is essential. We’ll review our vocabulary of terms, identify

audience(s), and help each other to address our work clearly and imaginatively to that audience.

 

Format of workshop: The class will be composed of two groups. Every other week you will be drafting, revising, and

turning in a poem to be workshopped the following week. The poems will be new work, at least 14 lines long, and you may turn in up to 2 at a time. Although we may only have time that week to workshop one of them, you’ll get written comments on both. Note that you will have 6 workshops (for each group), so you’ll need to turn in 2 poems at least once during the semester to compile 7 poems for the portfolio.

            You will need to bring enough copies of your work for each member of the class.  The poetry that you submit to the workshop should not be a first draft, but a revised and thought-out structure.  The next Wednesday, we will talk about the work we received the prior week. You are expected to have read each work and made comments in the margins and internally to the poem. Comments should include your response to the poem overall, including any questions/reactions you had while reading it. These copies will be handed back to the author. Be sure to put your name on the final page to acknowledge your comments.

 

 

Portfolio:  Your final portfolio will consist of 6 of the following well-revised works:

 • at least 5 poems, any form, consisting of more than 14 lines each

 • at least 1 more poem in any traditional form

 • & your journal

The poetry portfolio will consist of well-developed work(s), typed. You will be turning in 6 poems, but be aware

that you should be writing more than this over the semester. The pages that you turn in with your portfolio should be

your best work overall.

 

Basis for Student Evaluation:  • quality of final portfolio - 40%  • participation - 30%

 • oral presentation and review - 20% • daily assignments and quizzes- 10%

 

Absences: Missing one day of class is equivalent to missing 3 classroom hours, and I strongly oppose absences. Participation, quizzes, and turning in work comprise 40% of your grade.

 

Graduate Students: Graduate students will complete two projects in addition to the regular syllabus:

 1) Lead the class in a short writing exercise of your choice. Sign up for a particular week.

 2) Write a minimum-three-page line explication of any one of the poems that you've written this semester. This analysis,

rather than being organized around your theme, will discuss each line of your poem chronologically. Some of you may

find this exercise painful, but keep in mind that, in the lines, you're seeing the actual heartbeats of your poem, rather than

only its thematic corpus. Due with your portfolio.

 

Students are responsible for upholding the principles of academic honesty and classroom civility in accordance with the "University Statement of Student Rights" found in the STUDENT HANDBOOK.

 

Weekly Schedule

Note: Poems should be read at least twice. Slowly. The poem read twice is a different poem the second time. Your assignment is to bring that Twice-Read Poem to class for discussion, not the briefly read-once poem.

 

Week 1: Intro and group assignments.

Week 2: Read Wendell Berry (pp 15-20). Group 1 turns in poems.

Week 3: Read Rita Dove (68-73). Workshop of Group 1 poems; Group 2 turns in poems.

Week 4: No class. Dr. Swartwout’s at the AWP Conference.

Week 5: Read Elton Glaser (95-99). Workshop of Group 2 poems; Group 1 turns in poems.

Week 6: Read Mark Jarman (157-162). Workshop of Group 1 poems; Group 2 turns in poems.

Week 7: Read Maxine Kumin (181-184). Workshop of Group 2 poems; Group 1 turns in poems.

Week 8: Read Nick Flynn (87-90). Workshop of Group 1 poems; Group 2 turns in poems.

Week 9: SPRING BREAK.

Week 10: Read Dorianne Laux (185-188). Workshop of Group 2 poems; Group 1 turns in poems.

Week 11: Read Baron Wormser (391-396). Workshop of Group 1 poems; Group 2 turns in poems

Week 12: Read Natasha Trethewey (363-366). Workshop of Group 2 poems; Group 1 turns in poems.

Week 13: Read Linda Pastan (282-284). Workshop of Group 1 poems; Group 2 turns in poems.

Week 14: Read Thomas Lux (208-211). Workshop of Group 2 poems; Group 1 turns in poems.

Week 15: Read Joy Katz (166-169). Workshop of Group 1 poems; Group 2 turns in poems

Week 16: Presentations on the poetry book that you reviewed.  Group 2 workshop.

 

Your portfolio is due by 4 pm on May 13. A collection box will be outside my door at GB 318-O.