READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2006

I have a feeling that we’ll need to devote part of this week’s class time to wrapping up our discussion of Anne Sexton, so you'll have a chance to get caught up with readings if you need to, since there aren't any new critical essays/articles this week.

Please read as much of Sharon Olds' Strike Sparks as you are able, but for discussion purposes, you can focus/concentrate primarily on the following poems:

"Monarchs," p. 6
"The Language of the Brag," . 8
"New Mother," p. 23
"I Go Back to May 1937," p. 44
"I Cannot Forget the Woman in the Mirror," p. 51
"The Race," p. 63
"Beyond Harm," p. 70
"His Costume," p. 158
"First Weeks," p. 159
"The Clasp," p. 161
"The Window," p. 163

Please also read as much of Kim Addonizio's Tell Me as you are able to get through. Once again, however, for discussion purposes, you can focus/concentrate primarily on the following poems:

"Therapy," p. 33
"Collapsing Poem," p. 43
"Last Call," p. 54
"Tell Me," p. 65
"Mermaid Song," p. 67
"Affair," p. 70
"'What Do Women Want?'" p. 74
"Good Girl," p. 75
"Physics," p. 76
"Like That," p. 79
"One Night Stands," p. 85

For this week’s discussion question, please re-read/review Kathleen Osip’s essay, No Room in the Booth? An Appreciation of Confessional Poetry (from The Writer's Chronicle, February 2001, pp. 45-53). (Will download as a Word document), then consider the following question with regard to the work of Sharon Olds and Kim Addonizio:

In her article, “No Room in the Booth? An Appreciation of Confessional Poetry,” Kathleen Osip argues that post-confessional poets lack the craft and technique, as well as the passion and fire, of the original confessional poets. She suggests that while the original confessional poets “acted out” in their poems, the post-confessionals analyze and “work through” their issues in their poetry, and to detrimental effect. Please respond to Osip’s assertion, either defending or refuting her claim.

(Please note that this question is one of the possible paper topics/questions for the final course paper, thereby allowing you to decide if this question is of interest for you to pursue within the paper, and/or lay down some initial groundwork for your paper.)

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Don't forget that your Modeling Poem #1 is due this week, along with a 500-word discussion of the specific ways your poem imitates style traits of the poet/poem on which its modeled. Guidelines for this assignment can be located in the post below>

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Next, here is your weekly memoir prompt from The Autobiography Box for this week's blog posts due by midnight on Monday, October 2, 2006:

Is there a piece of music that reminds you of a particular time and place in your life? In Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, there is a violinist named Vinteuil who plays a simple and not very interesting theme of music. But as the years go by, Marcel finds that even a mediocre piece of music can carry with itlots of memory. The music that may cause an outpouring of memories for you may be a Beethoven sonata or a silly pop song. Think of one of these tunes and describe the memories that come to you.

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Finally, don’t forget that our first round of oral presentations will take place next week on Tuesday, October 10, 2006.

Here are the presentation guidelines:

Presentations should be eight minutes long.

Your presentation should be on a volume of poetry by a contemporary American poet (post-1950).

Your presentation should focus primarily on describing stylistic traits that you notice about this poet (i.e., Themes and/or Subject Matter; Diction, Voice, and Tone; Imagery; Structure/Form; Symbols, etc.)

Bring copies of one representative poem to pass out to the class (17 copies total); read and discuss the poem briefly in conjunction with the stylistic traits you've pointed out.

Keep biographical material to a minimum, unless it's pertinent to the discussion of the poet's work.

READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2006

If you haven’t done so already, please read the following poems from The Collected Poems of Anne Sexton:

Introductory Essay by Maxine Kumin, "How It Was," p. xix
"You, Doctor Martin," p. 3
"Music Swims Back to Me," p. 6
"Said the Poet to the Analyst," p. 12
"Her Kind," p. 15
"Elegy in the Classroom," p. 32
"For John, who Begs Me Not to Enquire Further," p. 34
"The Double Image," p. 35
"The Division of Parts," p. 42
"The Truth the Dead Know," p. 49
"All My Pretty Ones," p. 49
"To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph," p. 53
"The Starry Night," p. 53
"The Operation," p. 56
"The Abortion," p. 61
"With Mercy for the Greedy," p. 62
"The Fortress," p. 66
"Flee on Your Donkey," p. 97
"Sylvia's Death," p. 126
"Menstruation at Forty," p. 137
"Wanting to Die," p. 142
"Little Girl, My String Bean," p. 145
"Live," p. 167
"For My Lover, Returning to His Wife," p. 189
"The Break," p. 190
"Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator," p. 198
"Eighteen Days Without You," p. 265
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," p. 224
"Rumpelstiltskin," p. 233
"Cinderella," p. 255
"Briar Rose," p. 290
"Rats Live on No Evil Star," p. 359
"The Furies," p. 363

Please read the following materials:

Privacy Lessons, by Molly Peacock, from Creative Nonfiction, No. 17 (2001), pp. 67-83.

The Barfly Ought To Sing, by Anne Sexton (on Sylvia Plath's suicide). (From No Evil Star: Selected Essays, Interviews, and Prose -- Anne Sexton, edited by Steven E. Colburn, University of Michigan Press, 1985).

Interview with Anne Sexton, by Patricia Marx. (From No Evil Star).

The following materials are full-text articles which can be located via Project Muse, in the USD Library Research Databases. To access the articles, Click Here to go to USD's library page, click to the Research Databases link in the right column, and then type in Project Muse in the Search by Database prompt. (If you are working off-campus, note that you will be prompted for your Network ID and Password prior to being given access to the Research Databases). Once in Project Muse, you can search for the articles using title or author's last name, etc. The articles are available in both HTML and PDF format:

"'My Sweeney, Mr. Eliot': Anne Sexton and the 'Impersonal Theory of Poetry'," by Joanna Gill, in Journal of Modern Literature, 27.1/2 (Fall 2003), pp. 36-56.

"Public Dreams: Berryman, Celebrity, and the Culture of Confession," by David Haven Blake, in American Literary History, 13.4 (2001) pp. 716-736.

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Here are some questions that will ideally provide fodder for our discussions of Sexton, and hopefully help structure/guide your initial readings of Sexton and the related articles:

1. Anne Sexton is oftentimes considered the most quintessentially “confessional” of the confessional poets. Based on our ongoing discussions and readings regarding “confessional” poetry, do you agree or disagree with this assessment, and why?

2. Comparatively speaking, Anne Sexton was largely a self-taught poet (although she did take classes, workshops, and was mentored by a number of significant poets), and critics have, on occasions, taken her to task (particularly in some of her later work) for what has been viewed as a more slippery and less-well-honed approach to poetic craft and technique. Do you agree or disagree with this criticism, and how do you support your opinions in this regard? Are there possibly ways in which Sexton’s relative lack of formal education/training might be viewed as an asset for her? Also, do you agree or disagree with Joanna Gill’s arguments (article assigned above) regarding Sexton’s later work?

3. Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath are frequently lumped together in the same breath in any discussion of mid-century, American women “confessional” poets, yet in many respects they are, stylistically speaking, very different types of poets. Discuss the ways in which these poets are very different from each other. At the same time, are there ways in which certain similarities between the two can be drawn, accounting for why they are so often grouped/mentioned together?

4. It has been suggested that in her poems, Anne Sexton always plays the “gender card” in ways that are simultaneously abject, disconcerting, and empowering. Discuss the ways in which Sexton plays or plies her own gender/femininity within her poems and to what effect.

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Here is your memoir prompt from The Autobiography Box for the round of blog posts due on Monday, September 25, 2006:

Describe a moment of utter depression. Sometimes the gods conspire against us. Have you ever felt so down and out that there seemed to be an absence of all hope? Was it a series of events, bad luck, or things brought on by character flaws that required remedy.

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Don’t forget that your first modeling poem/assignment will be due on Tuesday, October 3, 2006.

Your assignment will be to write a poem in the style of one of the “confessional” poets discussed so far in class. Plath and Sexton will probably be your best bets at this juncture as we will have discussed their work in the most detail so far. (We will be returning to Lowell in more depth in another few weeks, so you will have your chance to do a model based on Lowell if you wish for the second modeling assignment.)

As examples of poems modeled on other poets, we have looked at Amy Gerstler’s poem, “The Luna Moth,” written in the style of (and dedicated to) Elizabeth Bishop. We’ve also looked at Robert Lowell’s poem, “Skunk Hour,” modeled after Bishop’s “The Armadillo” (and also dedicated to Bishop, and vice versa). Finally, Ted Hughes’ poem “Red” certainly echoes some of Plath’s imagery and use of color as an elegiac homage.

In addition to your modeled poem, you will need to write a 500-word discussion of the ways in which you have specifically attempted to imitate stylistic traits (subject/theme; voice/diction/tone; imagery (colors, symbols, styles of simile/metaphor); rhyme/rhythm/form/structure) in the poet/poem upon which you’ve modeled your poem.

Please bring a hard copy of your assignment to class on the due date, and also go ahead and post the assignment to your blog as well, because I think it will be fun/helpful/interesting for everyone to get to take a look at the models and style discussions as time allows.

READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2006

Please click below (unless otherwise noted) to download, print off, and/or read the following materials:

Subject Sylvia, by Meghan O'Rourke, from Poetry, via the Poetry Daily website.

Sylvia Plath and Confessional Poetry: A Reconsideration, by M. D. Uroff, from Iowa Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1977, pp. 104-15.

The Self in the World: The Social Context of Sylvia Plath's Late Poems, by Pamela J. Annas, from Women's Studies, Vol. 7, Nos. 1-2, 1980, pp. 171-83.

"’Viciousness in the Kitchen’:Sylvia Plath's Domestic Poetry”, by Jeannine Dobbs, from Modern Language Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1977, pp. 11-25.

The Big Strip Tease: Female Bodies and Male Power in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath, by Kathleen Margaret Lant, from Contemporary Literature.

If time allows, we may begin our discussion of Anne Sexton this period, so you may wish to begin reading the following poems from The Collected Poems of Anne Sexton:

Introductory Essay by Maxine Kumin, "How It Was," p. xix
"You, Doctor Martin," p. 3
"Music Swims Back to Me," p. 6
"Said the Poet to the Analyst," p. 12
"Her Kind," p. 15
"Elegy in the Classroom," p. 32
"For John, who Begs Me Not to Enquire Further," p. 34
"The Double Image," p. 35
"The Division of Parts," p. 42
"The Truth the Dead Know," p. 49
"All My Pretty Ones," p. 49
"To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph," p. 53
"The Starry Night," p. 53
"The Operation," p. 56
"The Abortion," p. 61
"With Mercy for the Greedy," p. 62
"The Fortress," p. 66
"Flee on Your Donkey," p. 97
"Sylvia's Death," p. 126
"Menstruation at Forty," p. 137
"Wanting to Die," p. 142
"Little Girl, My String Bean," p. 145
"Live," p. 167
"For My Lover, Returning to His Wife," p. 189
"The Break," p. 190
"Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator," p. 198
"Eighteen Days Without You," p. 265
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," p. 224
"Rumpelstiltskin," p. 233
"Cinderella," p. 255
"Briar Rose," p. 290
"Rats Live on No Evil Star," p. 359
"The Furies," p. 363

Don't forget to post your blog posts for the week of 9/12/06-9/18/06 no later than midnight on Monday, September 18, 2006. And speaking of which, here is this week's memoir prompt from The Autobiography Box:

What was your first day at middle school like? Some say "The Awkward Age" starts at 12 and ends with death. Did you feel lonely or unhappy making that important transition from childhood to teenage years? Was there anything or anybody who made it easier?

READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2006

Please read the following poems from Sylvia Plath's The Collected Poems:

"Pursuit," p. 22
"Ode for Ted," p. 29
"The Disquieting Muses," p. 73
"Full Fathom Five," p. 92
"Electra on Azalea Path," p. 117
"The Beekeeper's Daughter," p. 118
"The Colossus," p. 129
"Stillborn," p. 142
"Face Lift," p. 155
"In Plaster," p. 158
"Tulips," p. 160
"Insomniac," p. 163
"The Moon and the Yew Tree," p. 172
"Mirror," p. 173
"Berck-Plage," p. 195
"Poppies in July," p. 203
Bee Poems, 211-219
"Daddy," p. 222
"Fever 103," p. 231
"Cut," p. 235
"Ariel," p. 239
"Poppies in October," p. 240
"Purdah," p. 242
"Lady Lazarus," p. 244
"Edge," p. 272

Please also click on the links below (unless otherwise noted) to download, print off, and read the following materials:

Chapter 13 from The Bell Jar. (Sorry about the upside-down pages. If you print them out, it obviously won't matter, but if you're reading on-screen, you can use the Rotate Page button to turn them around into the correct position.)

Journal Fragments from Sylvia Plath's Unabridged Journals.

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Discussion Questions for Sylvia Plath:

Here are some questions that will ideally provide fodder for our discussions of Plath over the next few periods, and hopefully help structure/guide your initial readings of Plath and the related articles.

1. Sylvia Plath is always one of the first names that comes to mind in any discussion of “Confessional” poetry, but is Sylvia Plath really, in fact, a “Confessional” poet according to the most common definitions of “Confessionalism” as laid out in class last week? Why, or why not?

2. Sylvia Plath has been appropriated as an early feminist icon, and her work (despite being a relatively small oeuvre due to her suicide at the age of 30) plays a significant role in studies of women’s poetry and women’s literature in general. What about Plath’s work (or her life), do you think, makes it of particular significance to feminist studies and criticism?

3. Sylvia Plath was not only a patient who underwent Freudian psychoanalysis, she was also an avid reader/student of Freud as well, frequently alluding to Freudian psychoanalytic terminology/concepts in her journals, and even proclaiming that she suffered from “an Electra complex.” In what ways are Freudian concepts and/or images present in Plath’s poetry, and how does Freud function as a critical lens by which to understand/interpret her work?

4. An accomplished artist herself, Sylvia Plath was very interested in the visual arts, and was particularly enamored with Surrealist painters. In what ways might this interest be present in the imagery of Plath’s poetry, and are there other ways, as critics have argued, that Plath’s work evinces an ekphrastic, or painterly, eye? How about her use of color, for example?

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Please don't forget to post your weekly blog entries no later than Monday, September 11, by midnight. And speaking of which, here is this week's memoir prompt, from The Autobiography Box:

Write down a story that you tell people that didn't really happen the way you usually tell it. So many times we have a good story we embellish with exaggerations, switch events for the sake of timing or humor, all kinds of things. Come on, it's fun! But after you write down the story you tell everybody, tell the same story in its bare-bones, no-frills, true version. Think about the reasons why you twisted the facts around.

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And finally, I wanted to encourage you all to consider joining the Vermillion Literary Project--a student-run literary organization that hosts monthly poetry slams, publishes an annual literary journal, broadcasts a weekly radio show, holds an annual short story competition and an annual poetry festival, and much more! It's a terrific organization that gives you the opportunity to learn and/or use valuable real-life skills, and it's also a lot of fun. Come and check out the first VLP meeting of the year on Friday, September 8, 2005, at 4:00 p.m. in Dakota Hall 201. You can also click HERE for more information, or e-mail Michelle Rogge Gannon at mrogge@usd.edu.