The Art of Syntax, pages 43 through 61, "Meter and Phrase."
Very important: Robert Frost: "A sentence is not interesting merely in conveying a meaning of words. It must do something more: it must convey a meaning by sound." Also Frost: "The living part of a poem is the intonation entangled somehow in the syntax idiom and meaning of a sentence." (43 and 45)
Page 52: "Relationships among stressed and unstressed syllables can support or resist poetic meter."
Page 54: Shakespeare's paradigmatic sonnet. Page 55: Iambic pentameter.
Laurie Anderson, "O Superman": http://youtu.be/-VIqA3i2zQw
What is the sound, and what is the meaning, and how do they interrelate, and how are they relayed both through words and through sound?
Collage into 10 similes and metaphors. Get into two groups. Help each other select the top 5 for each. Then write a five-stanza, four-line poem using the metaphors/similes as the beginning of each stanza.
Theodore Roethke on poets.org
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Monday 2/10/14 Class
Read the four-line, three-stanza poem about a current event...
Let's talk about how the narrative of the event gets translated into language and structure (syntax). What did you choose to leave in and leave out? How did the structure (four-lines, etc.) affect the way you told the story within the poem?
The Art of Syntax, pages 43 through 61, "Meter and Phrase."
Very important: Robert Frost: "A sentence is not interesting merely in conveying a meaning of words. It must do something more: it must convey a meaning by sound." Also Frost: "The living part of a poem is the intonation entangled somehow in the syntax idiom and meaning of a sentence." (43 and 45)
Page 52: "Relationships among stressed and unstressed syllables can support or resist poetic meter."
Page 54: Shakespeare's paradigmatic sonnet. Page 55: Iambic pentameter.
Laurie Anderson, "O Superman": http://youtu.be/-VIqA3i2zQw
What is the sound, and what is the meaning, and how do they interrelate, and how are they relayed both through words and through sound?
Anne Sexton on poets.org
Collage exercise:
"nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands"
Let's talk about how the narrative of the event gets translated into language and structure (syntax). What did you choose to leave in and leave out? How did the structure (four-lines, etc.) affect the way you told the story within the poem?
The Art of Syntax, pages 43 through 61, "Meter and Phrase."
Very important: Robert Frost: "A sentence is not interesting merely in conveying a meaning of words. It must do something more: it must convey a meaning by sound." Also Frost: "The living part of a poem is the intonation entangled somehow in the syntax idiom and meaning of a sentence." (43 and 45)
Page 52: "Relationships among stressed and unstressed syllables can support or resist poetic meter."
Page 54: Shakespeare's paradigmatic sonnet. Page 55: Iambic pentameter.
Laurie Anderson, "O Superman": http://youtu.be/-VIqA3i2zQw
What is the sound, and what is the meaning, and how do they interrelate, and how are they relayed both through words and through sound?
Anne Sexton on poets.org
The Truth the Dead Know
Anne Sexton
For my Mother, born March 1902, died March 1959
and my Father, born February 1900, died June 1959
Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.
We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
where the sea swings in like an iron gate
and we touch. In another country people die.
My darling, the wind falls in like stones
from the whitehearted water and when we touch
we enter touch entirely. No one's alone.
Men kill for this, or for as much.
And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
in the stone boats. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.
Collage exercise:
"nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands"
Monday, February 3, 2014
Wednesday 2/5/2014 Class
The Art of the Syntax, page 23 through 42, "The Sentence and the Line."
Group 1: Page 24: "Poetic meter..." Read that paragraph and discuss how "the poetic line is inherently artificial, imposed by the poet onto the language."
Group 2: Read the Stanley Kunitz poem (page 26)... Talk about paragraph on page 29, "Kunitz has said..."
Group 3: Page 42: "You cannot write a poem until you hit upon its rhythm. That rhythm not only belongs to the subject matter, it belongs to your interior world, and the moment they hook up there's a quantum leap of energy. You can ride on that rhythm. It will carry you somewhere strange." What is Kunitz getting at here, concerning syntax and meter and rhythm? How do sounds increase meaning? How does meaning increase sound?
poets.org: ee cummings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9Scwhpy9oY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1ypkNLpJGk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA836Ax7scw
Write a poem in paragraph form.
Read the paragraph and then read the poetic restructuring aloud...
Write a four-line, three-stanza poem about a current event...
Group 1: Page 24: "Poetic meter..." Read that paragraph and discuss how "the poetic line is inherently artificial, imposed by the poet onto the language."
Group 2: Read the Stanley Kunitz poem (page 26)... Talk about paragraph on page 29, "Kunitz has said..."
Group 3: Page 42: "You cannot write a poem until you hit upon its rhythm. That rhythm not only belongs to the subject matter, it belongs to your interior world, and the moment they hook up there's a quantum leap of energy. You can ride on that rhythm. It will carry you somewhere strange." What is Kunitz getting at here, concerning syntax and meter and rhythm? How do sounds increase meaning? How does meaning increase sound?
poets.org: ee cummings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9Scwhpy9oY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1ypkNLpJGk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA836Ax7scw
Write a poem in paragraph form.
Read the paragraph and then read the poetic restructuring aloud...
Write a four-line, three-stanza poem about a current event...
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Monday 2/3/14 Class
Bring in the completed poem you finished from the other classmate. Be prepared to read it aloud, and talk about where you took it.
Read "Language, Literacy, and Literature," page 3 - 21, The Art of Syntax.
Look up Wallace Stevens on poets.org, and select the poem you like the most. Let's talk about the ones you have chosen. And go through some of the syntactical strategies he uses...
- What was "inside" what the other person wrote that gave you to fuel to push forward? What wasn't there?
- How did you make it your own?
Read "Language, Literacy, and Literature," page 3 - 21, The Art of Syntax.
- What is the "fundament"?
- What is "syntax"?
- How do language and music interrelate according to Voigt?
- It is useful to remember that we write in sentences too, and that the infinite variations of generative syntax take another quantum leap when they can be reinforced, or reconfigured--rechunked--by the poetic line... What do you think Voigt is getting at here? What does she mean by "poetic line" and "rechunk"?
Look up Wallace Stevens on poets.org, and select the poem you like the most. Let's talk about the ones you have chosen. And go through some of the syntactical strategies he uses...
Monday, January 27, 2014
Wednesday 1/29/14 Class
20-minute poem in class, revised 3 times... Four sheets of paper.
Pair up. Exchange poem/revisions. Read through. Then talk about:
What is your process?
What do you start with?
How do you know what you don't need?
What do you end with?
What form did you use to write your poem?
How did you decide what you got rid of, and what you kept, and what you added?
Choose one of the 12, and write the beginning of a poem:
Oprah's 12-Ways-to-Write-a-Poem
Read the beginnings aloud. Switch with the person beside you. That person finishes the poem.
proc·ess 1 (prŏs′ĕs′, prō′sĕs′)
Pair up. Exchange poem/revisions. Read through. Then talk about:
What is your process?
What do you start with?
How do you know what you don't need?
What do you end with?
What form did you use to write your poem?
How did you decide what you got rid of, and what you kept, and what you added?
Choose one of the 12, and write the beginning of a poem:
Oprah's 12-Ways-to-Write-a-Poem
Read the beginnings aloud. Switch with the person beside you. That person finishes the poem.
proc·ess 1 (prŏs′ĕs′, prō′sĕs′)
n. pl. proc·ess·es (prŏs′ĕs′ĭz, prō′sĕs′-, prŏs′ĭ-sēz′, prō′sĭ-)
1. A series of actions, changes, or functions bringing about a result: the process of digestion; the process of obtaining a driver's license.
2. A series of operations performed in the making or treatment of a product: a manufacturing process; leather dyed during the tanning process.
3. Progress; passage: the process of time; events now in process.
4. Law The entire course of a judicial proceeding.
5. Law
a. A summons or writ ordering a defendant to appear in court.
b. The total quantity of summonses or writs issued in a particular proceeding.
6. Biology An outgrowth of tissue; a projecting part: a bony process.
7. Any of various photomechanical or photoengraving methods.
8. Computer Science
a. A running software program or other computing operation.
b. A part of a running software program or other computing operation that does a single task.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Syllabus 226 Spring Semester
Introduction to Creative
Writing
ENG
226 B, M/W 4:00 – 5:20 PM
275
UPH
Keith
Banner: thunderskyinc@gmail.com. Blog: www.habituallycreative.blogspot.com. Website for poetry: www.poets.org. Phone:
823-8914. Office Hours by
appointment.
Required Texts
- Mystery and Manners, Flannery O’Connor
- The Art of Syntax, Ellen Brant Voigt
Goals
- To become familiar with
the language of poetry and fiction
- To develop an awareness
of the variety in form in both fiction and poetry
- To practice writing and
try new things
- To develop habits of
observation, consistency, and care
- To become proficient at
recognizing strategy and intention in structure and form, and to analyze
the writer’s success in these attempts
- To build a solid
foundation for the continued study and practice of fiction writing and
poetry
Assignments and Grading
- Quizzes on reading and new terms: 10%
- Two weekly craft-based assignments: 10%
- A mid-term poetry portfolio: 25%
- An end-of-semester fiction portfolio: 25%
- Two essays in which you examine a poem and a story from the blog
(you choose the poem and the story): 7.5% each, 15% total
- Participation: 15%,
includes attendance, class discussions and in-class writing; and bringing
appropriate materials to class. Always bring your books and a notebook,
along with your preferred writing instrument.
Weeks 1 – 7: Poetry
- A chapter a week in The Art of Syntax.
Possible pop quizzes throughout. Assignment from www.poets.org.
- Weekly in-class writing assignments.
- Weekly in-class workshopping of
assignments,
- Portfolio of poetry (four poems), with a
paper examining poem of your choosing due: March 10. 2014
Weeks 8 – 15: Fiction
- A chapter a week in Mystery and Manners.
Possible pop quizzes throughout.
Assignment from www.habituallycreative.blogspot.com.
- Weekly in-class writing assignments.
- Weekly in-class workshopping of
assignments,
- Portfolio of fiction (two stories), with
a paper examining story of your choosing due: May 7, 2014
Friday, November 2, 2012
"Revelation"
"Revelation" by Flannery O'Connor.
How are characters revealed?
How does O'Connor handle time and space?
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