Week 7: Teaching Poetic Form

In class:

• Camaryn Crump's poetic form teaching demo:
  • “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes
  • (Read and Listen– I suggest at the same time) )
    • “Dope” by Amiri Baraka
    • Amiri Baraka - Dope
  • “We Real Cool” By Gwendolyn Brooks
• The Sounds of Poetry
• Discussion of the following poems:
  • "Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins
  • "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll
  • "Tender Buttons: Objects" by Gertrude Stein
  • "[Because I could not stop for Death]" by Emily Dickinson
  • "The Dance" by William Carlos Williams
  • "[In Just-]" by E. E. Cummings

Assignments

• Readings for Candace Myers' teaching demo:
  • The Passionate Shepherd To His Love
  • The Nymph's Reply To The Shepherd
• Poems and poetic traditions:
  1. Elizabethan Poetry
     • William Shakespeare Sonnet 130
  2. Restoration Poetry
     • Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism," Part 1
  3. Romanticism
     • Walt Whitman "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer"
  4. Victorian Poetry
     • Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "[How do I love thee? Let me count the ways]"
  5. Imagism
     • H.D. "Oread"
  6. Modernism
     • T.S. Eliot "The Wasteland," Part 1
  7. Black Arts Movement
     • The Last Poets, "When the Revolution Comes" (lyrics)
  8. Black Mountain Poets
     • Robert Creeley "I Know a Man"
  9. Confessional Poetry
     • Sylvia Plath "Morning Song"
  10. Language Poetry
      • Charles Bernstein, "Of Time and the Line"
  11. Concrete Poetry
      • Mary Ellen Solt, "Elegy for Three Astronauts"
  12. Performance Poetry
      • Ursula Rucker, "What a Woman Must Do"

• Consult Greene, Roland, et al., eds. The Princeton encyclopedia of poetry and poetics. Read entries on the poetic movements, traditions, and forms you have selected and at least 3-4 others.
• Prepare one informative slide in this slideshow and prepare to briefly explain the poetic tradition you are discussing to the class. Prepare to read the poem (or an excerpt, in case of a long poem) out loud in class and be prepared to help lead a brief discussion of the poem in the context of its poetic tradition.