READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2006

Important!! Don't forget that Modeling Poem #2 will be due in class today! (Please also post your poems and analyses to your blogs so that others can check in as time allows.) You may model any poet studied in the class thus far, provided that you didn't already model this poet in your first modeling assignment. Also, don't forget to include a two-page (5000-word) analysis that discusses the specific ways in which your poem is imitating the style traits of your chosen poet/poem.

Please read/print out the following articles, which are available as Full-Text Articles from WilsonSelectPlus in the USD Library Research Databases. To access WilsonSelectPlus, click HERE to get to the USD Library Research Databases page. Next, click on Arts and Humanities. On the next screen, click on Language and Literature. On the screen after that, click on Arts and Humanities Search. You'll be taken to a screen next that has a drop-down menu for databases to search, at which point you'll want to replace AH Search with WilsonSelectPlus on the drop-down menu. Now you can simply type in article or author titles to pull up the full-text articles from the WilsonSelectPlus database. (Please note that at some point during this process you'll most likely be prompted for your USD User ID and Password).

"Dedications: Lowell's 'Skunk Hour' and Bishop's 'The Armadillo,'", by Lloyd Schwartz, Salmagundi, No. 141/142 (Winter Spring 2004).

"Elizabeth Bishop's 'Queer Birds': Vassar, Con Spirito, and the Romance of Female Community," by Bethany Hicok, Contemporary Literature< , Vol. 40 No. 2 (Summer 1999), pp. 285-310.

"Elizabeth Bishop's Stories of Childhood: Writing the Disaster," by Andre Furlani, Critique, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Winter 2002).

Please also read the following poems from Elizabeth Bishop's Complete Poems 1927-1976:

"The Map," p. 3
"The Man-Moth," p. 14
"Florida," p. 32
"Roosters," p. 35
"The Fish," p. 42
"A Cold Sring," p. 55
"Over 2,000 Illustrations," p. 57
"The Bight," p. 60
"At the Fishhouses," p. 64
"Cape Breton," p. 67
"Insomnia," p. 70
"Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore," p. 82
"The Shampoo," p. 84

* * *

And finally, here is this week's memoir prompt from The Autobiography Box for blog posts due by midnight on Monday, November 6, 2006:

Remember something or somebody you pursued with a passion. How old were you when this happened? Does it seem a rite of passage, or a turning point in growing up? Did you get the thing or that person? If so, was it worth it? If not, do you have regrets?

READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2006

Please read Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara, and as much of David Lehman's The Evening Star as you can get through.

Please also read/print out the following articles, which are available as Full-Text Articles from WilsonSelectPlus in the USD Library Research Databases. To access WilsonSelectPlus, click HERE to get to the USD Library Research Databases page. Next, click on Arts and Humanities. On the next screen, click on Language and Literature. On the screen after that, click on Arts and Humanities Search. You'll be taken to a screen next that has a drop-down menu for databases to search, at which point you'll want to replace AH Search with WilsonSelectPlus on the drop-down menu. Now you can simply type in article or author titles to pull up the full-text articles from the WilsonSelectPlus database. (Please note that at some point during this process you'll most likely be prompted for your USD User ID and Password).

"'And Everyone and I Stopped Breathing': William Carlos Williams, Frank O'Hara and the News of the Day in Verse," by Paul R. Cappucci, Papers on Language and Literature, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Fall 2003), p. 375-89.

"Tribes of New York: Frank O'Hara, Amiri Baraka, and the Poetics of the Five Spot," by Michael Magee, Contemporary Literature, Vol. 42, No. 4 (Winter 2001), pp. 694-726.

Please also read/print out the following articles, which are available as Full-Text Articles from Project Muse in the USD Library Research Databases. To access Project Muse, click HERE to get to the USD Library Research Databases page. Next, click on Arts and Humanities. On the next screen, click on Language and Literature. On the screen after that, scroll down and click on Project Muse. Now you can simply type in article or author titles to pull up the full-text articles from the Project Muse database. (Please note that at some point during this process you'll most likely be prompted for your USD User ID and Password).

"Angel Hair Magazine, the Second-Generation New York School, and the Poetics of Sociability," by David Kane, Contemporary Literature, Vol. 45, No. 2 (2004), pp. 331-367.

"Confessional Counterpublics in Frank O'Hara and Allen Ginsberg," by Anne Hartman, Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Summer 2005), pp. 40-56.

* * *

Here are some discussion questions for this week's readings:

1. In what ways do Frank O'Hara's "personism" and David Lehman's news-of-the-day journal poems relate to Confessional poetry? In what ways do they seem radically different from the Confessional poems we've looked at thus far?

2. Critics have spent a lot of time criticizing an alleged lack of style, craft, and technique in the work of the Confessional poets. How do O'Hara and Lehman hold up to similar scrutiny, and in what ways might you defend (or not) their use (or lack) of poetic style, craft, and technique?

3. In what ways do painters and paintings emerge as a significant aesthetic influence in Frank O'Hara's poems?

4. Based on our previous discussions of Modernism and Post-Modernism, would you categorize O'Hara's poetry as one or the other, or somewhere in between, and why? How about David Lehman? Is he a Post-Modern poet?

* * *

Finally, here is the memoir prompt from The Autobiography Box for this week:

Write about the first time you went away from home alone. Was it a vacation? Was it for work? Were you looking for something? Were you running away? Do you see that excursion as a "hero's journey", or did you go kicking and screaming? How did it change you?

READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2006

For starters, please review/reacquaint yourself with the smallish batch of Lowell readings initially assigned on September 5, which I've re-listed below:

91 Revere Street, by Robert Lowell, from Life Studies, 1959. (Will download as a PDF document).

From Robert Lowell's Selected Poems:

"The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket," p. 6.
"Beyond the Alps," p. 55.
"To Delmore Schwartz," p. 66.
"Memories of West Street and Lepke," p. 91.
"Skunk Hour," p. 95.

Please also read/print out the following articles, which are available as Full-Text Articles from WilsonSelectPlus in the USD Library Research Databases. To access WilsonSelectPlus, click HERE to get to the USD Library Research Databases page. Next, click on Arts and Humanities. On the next screen, click on Language and Literature. On the screen after that, click on Arts and Humanities Search. You'll be taken to a screen next that has a drop-down menu for databases to search, at which point you'll want to replace AH Search with WilsonSelectPlus on the drop-down menu. Now you can simply type in article or author titles to pull up the full-text articles from the WilsonSelectPlus database. (Please note that at some point during this process you'll most likely be prompted for your USD User ID and Password).

"Panel: Lowell Off the Page," by Robert Giroux, Charles McKinley, and Robert Dana, The Kenyon Review, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Winter 2000) pp. 255-74.

"Robert Lowell on Native Ground," by Richard Tillinghast, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 71 (Winter 1995, pp. 86-100.

"Looking Back at Robert Lowell," by Alan Williamson, The American Poetry Review, Vol. 24 (May/June 1995), pp. 35-38.

And please also go on to read the following new poems from Robert Lowell's Selected Poems :

"History," p. 159
"Coleridge," p. 174
"Randall Jarrell 1, 2, and 3," pp. 177-178
"For Eugene McCarthy," p. 182
"Reading Myself," p. 183
"Father," p. 195
"Mother and Father, 1 and 2," pp. 195-196
"Mother, 1972," p. 197
"Father in a Dream," p. 197
"To Daddy," p. 198
Part One of For Lizzie and Harriet, pp. 209-211
"Fall Weekend at Milgate," p. 231
"Mermaid," p. 233
"Mermaid Emerging," p. 237
"Late Summer at Milgate," p. 239
"Robert Sheridan Lowell," p. 239
"Christmas," p. 245
"Christmas," p. 246
"Dolphin," p. 246

* * *

Finally, here is this week's memoir prompt from The Autobiography Box for blog posts due on Monday, October 23, 2006 :

Create a word portrait of yourself. Using as much descriptive language as possible, draw a picture of yourself, including physical attributes, but also the things that have given your face character--what you inherited from your parents, what life and time have done to alter it.

READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2006

Important!! Oral presentations due/presented today!

No assigned readings for this class meeting, as we'll be doing the in-class presentations on contemporary American poets (post-1950) this week instead. (Guidelines for presentations are outlined in the post directly below).

Please note that in lieu of your regularly-scheduled blog post in response to assigned readings, I would like for you to write an informal blog post this week on the volume of poetry that you did for your presentation this week.

Finally, here is this week’s memoir prompt from The Autobiography Box for blog posts due on Monday, October 16, 2006:

Describe a significant quarrel between yourself and a family member. What was the quarrel about? Was the quarrel ongoing over many years or an isolated incident? Did you resolve the difference or did it cause a complete break of relations? Was it violent? Do you regret the quarrel?