Monday 2/24/14 Class

Do a rondeau, and also "undo" a rondeau.  Couple up, read each other's work, talk about what it takes to create a poem with a set structure involved, and what it takes to dismantle that structure and maintain "poem-ness."   

Art of Syntax, page 79 to 97, "A Varied Pulse."

Elizabeth Bishop's "The Moose," page 82 to 85 and...

Page 97:  "Bishop had to discover her [rhythm] through trial and error, much tinkering, much listening.  Bishop's attention to small syntactical chunks was crucially enabling to that rhythm, supplying a flexible underlying grid or pulse that allowed delicate syntactical complication.  We can reasonable surmise that the interplay between large-scale and small-scale systems prompted, shaped, recofused, or reinforced the complex hierarchies of the piece as it emerged through slow, patient drafting.  WHAT DIRECTED THAT INTERPLAY IN BISHOP'S MAGNIFICENT POEM WAS SYNTAX."

Choose a poet for upcoming paper... 

Denise Levertov

Anne Sexton

Theodore Roethke

Laurie Anderson

Wallace Stevens

e e cummings

Philip Larkin

Elizabeth Bishop 

Stanley Kunitz

CK Williams on poets.org