Week 2: Modernism and the Black Mountain Poets

Monday, January 23

• In class
  • "A Retrospect" and "A Few Don'ts" by Ezra Pound
  • "Preface to Some Imagist Poets" by Amy Lowell
  • "Modernism" in Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (see syllabus for link).
  • "The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter" by Ezra Pound
  • "A Decade" by Amy Lowell
  • "Oread" by H.D.
  • "If I Told Him" by Gertrude Stein
  • "Preludes" and "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot
• Assignment
  • Readings:
    • "Black Mountain School" in Princeton Encyclopedia
    • "Projective Verse" by Charles Olson
    • Charles Olson's bio and at least two of his poems.
    • Robert Duncan bio and at least two of his poems.
    • Robert Creeley's bio and at least two of his poems.
  • Writing:
    • Discuss how Charles Olson's ideas of projective verse manifest in a poem by Olson, Duncan, and Creeley.

Wednesday, January 25

• In class:
  • "Harlem" by Langston Hughes
  • "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams
  • "Buffalo Bill 's" by E.E. Cummings
  • Charles Olson's poetry.
  • Robert Duncan's poetry.
  • Robert Creeley's poetry.
  •  
• Homework:
  • Readings:
    • "San Francisco Renaissance" and "Beat Poets" in Princeton Encyclopedia
    • Gary Snyder's bio and two of his poems
    • Allen Ginsberg's bio and two of his poems
  • Writing:
    • Discuss how the poetics of Beat poetry and the San Francisco Renaissance manifest in a poem by Allen Ginsberg and another by Gary Snyder.
    • Post before class on Monday.

Class meets face to face next week!