English
408-001 Poetry Writing (Spring 2012)
Professor
Michael Meyerhofer
Monday (now in RB114),
6:30 to 9:10 PM
Writing
is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.
-David
McCullough
I
think one of my early motivations for writing was that other people's versions
of experience didn't
gel with my own. It was a gesture toward sanity to try to get the world right
for myself. I've
since learned that if you get it right for yourself, it often has resonance for
others.
-Stephen Dunn
How
vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
-Henry
David Thoreau
Welcome
to English 408! The easiest way to reach
me is via email (mrmeyerhofer@bsu.edu),
but it is not the only way. You can also
drop by my office (RB246) during my
office hours (MW, 2-3 PM). When I am
in my office, you can call me at 285-8573. If those time slots do not work, you are more
than welcome to set up an appointment with me.
Texts:
The Good Thief by Marie Howe
Lovely Asunder by Danielle Deulen
Velocities
by Stephen Dobyns
Lucifer at Starlite by Kim Addonizio
Maybe the Saddest Thing by Marcus Wicker
Stag's Leap by Sharon Olds
Class
Description:
Welcome to English 408! This course is designed for those with a
substantial interest in poetry and, hopefully, a strong background as creative
writers. Since we are all contemporary
writers, I tend to focus primarily on contemporary (aka “living”) poets. I’ll push you to develop your own personal
aesthetic—meaning, decide for yourself what you like—and hopefully, we’ll also
have some good, subjective debates about what makes a poem a poem. We will also discuss the formal elements of
poetry like alliteration, assonance, extended metaphor, etc. This class also consists of intensive
workshops in which we discuss each other’s poems, as well as the poetry of
well-established contemporary poets like Sharon Olds, Tony Hoagland, Dorianne
Laux, Stephen Dobyns, Billy Collins, and others. Since no one is expected to consistently turn
out great poems on the first or second draft, constructive feedback is also a
vital component of the revision process, which factors heavily into the final
portfolio. Each student in class will be
expected to duplicate copies of his or her poems for class discussion.
Class
Requirements:
—A
portfolio of 8 poems, written over the course of the semester, revised by
semester’s end (40% of final grade)
—Journals
(20% of final grade)
—Class
Participation (20% of final grade)
—Midterm
exam (10% of final grade)
—A
class presentation on an opportunity in publishing, internship, or graduate
school not previously discussed in class (10% of final grade)
Class
Rules:
Plagiarism:
Don’t do it. The point of this class is for you to create poetry that is unique
to you and to learn about yourself as a writer in the process. Turning in
someone else’s poetry as your own prevents that from happening, and is grounds
for automatic failure of and dismissal from the class. As for turning in work from previous
courses—in general, I frown on that because odds are, you’re a better writer
now than you were then. I might be
willing to make exceptions if you talk to me first, though. My philosophy on workshops is this: if you
don’t care about what you’ve written, we probably won’t either, so please only
turn in work that you care about.
Absences: You can miss up
to three classes without penalty. If you miss four to five classes, your final
grade will be reduced by one letter grade. If you miss six to seven classes,
your final grade will be reduced by two letter grades. If you miss eight or
more classes, you fail for the semester.
However, attendance isn’t just a matter of being there on time; it’s a
matter of good participation. I reserve
the right to mark as absent any student who disrupts class or fails to be
respectful to others.
Journals: I expect you to
turn in a journal (two full, double spaced pages, typed) for each of the assigned texts. Don’t just say “I like this” or “I hate
this.” Give me specific lines or
techniques that caught your attention.
You don’t have to like all the writers I assign, let alone all the poems
in a given book. In fact, I welcome
disagreements! Let’s get some good
discussions/debates going so basically, look at the journals as prep for class
discussion.
Class
Participation:
The way we improve as writers and critics is by practice and
participation. In other words, this is a
workshop class, not a lecture one. Here even more so than in English 308, that
means everyone must participate by giving feedback to class
members. Both oral and written comments
on poems by your classmates are required.
This workshop is a writers’ community, and all members of the class are
expected to give thoughtful, tactful, and serious consideration to work written
by class members. Also, always feel free to ask questions about any aspect of
the class. In terms of your final grade, strong class participation will help
you greatly, especially if your grade is borderline. So don’t be afraid to
speak up, and to speak your mind, but do it with consideration for the opinions
and feelings of your classmates. Going
along with this, you are expected to behave respectfully in class. That means please don’t chat, interrupt, play
with cell phones or laptops, etc.
Midterm: Your midterm
exam will cover some of the terminology and aesthetic philosophies discussed in
class. If you pay attention (and ask
questions), you’ll do fine.
Another Point
About Workshops: We’re
going to cover a lot of stuff in this class—the technical elements of
contemporary poetry (especially free verse), different aesthetic philosophies,
the various types of authorial risk, and naturally, all sorts of personal,
political, and cultural topics that often inspire us to write in the first
place. The best way to do this is
through sincere but relaxed class discussions and workshops. You’ll find that rather than give formal
lectures demanding rote memorization, I’ll dispense most of my lectures on
craft through workshops. So please stay
involved, even if your particular piece isn’t being discussed; often, a piece
of advice or an observation that benefits someone else can benefit us, too. We don’t always have to agree (in fact, we
probably won’t) but I’d like to see you get a little fired up about your
opinions.
About Your Instructor: I am fairly awkward and prone to making bad jokes but I promise, I'm well-intentioned. OK, not that we've got that out of the
way, we can continue. I've published three books and five chapbooks of
poetry and have won quite a few national prizes. I also have a literary
fantasy novel forthcoming in April (the first in a series). Feel free
to swing by www.troublewithhammers.com
and check out some of my work, if you’re bored. This is my sixth year
as an Assistant Professor at Ball State University. Before this, I
taught composition and creative writing at Southern Illinois University
for four years. I’m the Poetry Editor for Atticus Review and
I’ve also been a tutor, worked in a rehab center, flipped burgers, and
built refrigerators in a factory (worst job ever). I am also an
unapologetic history, science, and politics nerd so be prepared to have
random facts thrown at you (and, sometimes, candy). As my prior
students can attest to, I believe very strongly in helping my students.
So if you have questions or concerns, let me know!
Opening Activities
Those
who have had a class with me before might recognize some of the following poems
but I thought we’d start out with a little review of the basic concepts of
poetry, different schools of thought, the risks v. the rewards of different
strategies, etc. As with pretty much
anything, it’s obviously not required that your aesthetic match my own, let
alone match the aesthetic of any given piece that we’re discussing. Our goal here is simply to work on defining your own aesthetic… and, well, write
better. Whatever that means. Let’s start by considering/discussing this
excerpt by Billy Collins:
“I
have lately begun to think of the ideally shaped poem in the way I think of an
eye chart. On the top line is the big E,
which everyone can plainly see (the chart’s “accessibility”), but as we read
down, eventually we will come to a line whose legibility is beyond the limit of
our vision. Thus, the best poems begin
in clarity and end in mystery: they begin with the obvious and then move toward
realms of inscrutability where the truth can be approached only by gesture. If
every line in a poem were equally clear (all E’s), we would be deprived of the
ambiguities and secrets that poetry has always been the best means of
exploring; if every line were illegible, we would have no ground to stand on,
no place from which to view the great riddle at the heart of our existence.” -Billy
Collins, intro to 180 More: Extraordinary
Poems for Every Day
The Deer in the Barns
by Peter Bethanis
In autumn, the men hang deer
Upside down from the barn rafters.
Run their knives the whole length
Of the belly then barrel-hoop their
arms
And yank out the guts like a sack
of potatoes.
Their eyes tear from the smell
And blood drips down onto
newspapers.
Laughing, drinking, talking
Late into the night, they gather
around the animal,
Its eyes blank as bullets, the
tongue
A pink glove in its mouth,
The lip curled as if to speak.
One of the sons, rubbing the soft
curve
Of the deer’s ear, asks questions
About death, and once again,
They all huddle about the moonlit
dark
With the same sacred lies,
Doomed creatures themselves, afraid
to flinch.
Poem of Natural Selection
by Peter Bethanis
This poem has risen up from a
modern world
Of ugly American cities. It
has survived
Dogma and rednecks. It has
learned to praise
The sun and earth, to lower
Its quirky, unneeded tail
Right into the thick of things.
This poem has small blind eyes
And an accidental bump
On its nose to feel through the
dark.
It will never grow feathers
Or a unicorn’s spiral. It has
accepted
Its horns like two mushrooms,
And will sacrifice itself for other
More efficient poems,
With larger muscles and sharper
claws.
This poem scuttles along
On tiny legs, taking joy in the
fact
That it has breathed its weak,
small breaths,
Like a glowing ash
That has drifted up into a tree,
Everyone amazed that it has lasted
Its two or three minutes,
Before it gives itself up
To a branch’s black enveloping
wing.
The Shoe
by Peter Bethanis
In the summer of 1972
We took a vacation to Florida.
My father mentioned the separate
bathrooms.
My brother, sitting on the beach
with his bucket
And shovel, got sunburned so bad
We had to take him to the hospital,
His back a field of blisters.
By the time I was ten
I didn’t understand what Walter
Cronkite
Was telling the country, but I
sensed
My parents’ worry as they listened
To the television or waited for a
letter.
Once I felt sick to my stomach at
school
And someone, I’m not sure who,
drove
Me home with another boy.
He was a black kid, and one of his
shoes
Had a lift. We both lay
moaning
In the back seat, and then we
started
Laughing, then he threw up,
And we laughed harder
Until he buckled over and was
dropped off,
And I watched him walk with the
shoe,
The thick sole balancing like a
raft in choppy water
To his doorstep, and never saw him
again.
Ode to a Scar
by Peter Bethanis
Oh long flattened eel
Down my belly,
Before you I was nothing.
You are the one glistening art.
You are the great threaded lines
Sutured up and true.
Yes, you showed me how to call out
And know my voice.
I call out like a dying lion.
I bleed like a sacrificed lamb.
I lie down with both
And hear my voice
Cry out,
And it is my only poem,
Scar that opened me up down the
whole belly,
That halved me in two,
Letting the last ghost of who I was
Rise into the air.
Scar of Andromeda,
Twelve nails hammered into my mind,
Twisted, sewn, and tied down
Like the fangs of a snake
To sink into my awaking,
Perfunctory lines driven to spirit,
For love or hate or forgiveness,
The poem crying out,
I am alive,
Scream of the licking flame,
I welcome you now holy scar,
And give myself wholly to you
Each lashed out syllable of who I
am,
Tower of faith, ladder of flesh,
Beyond all that I can say or hear
or see.
When the Locomotives Go Extinct
by
Peter Bethanis
When the moons of their foreheads
Go dark, when their chugging wheels
Hiss to a stop, when the last
engineer
Throws his hat down in disgust,
When the final destinations are
abandoned
Like chessboards with missing
pieces,
The mind recalls, as if awakening
out of a dream,
The boastful puffs of black smoke,
The proud throaty whistle splitting
the horizon.
When the locomotives go extinct,
One might recollect a lover’s face
Passing behind glass in another
age,
Or a leisurely ride on a hot air
balloon.
I recall the great whales,
The shy silverbacks.
When the locomotives go extinct,
The warmth of sun on the tracks
On the last day will turn frozen
and cold,
Like old bones, like a language
forgotten.
A few locals gather at the station.
A kick at the dirt.
Suicide
Song
by
Tony Hoagland
But
now I am afraid I know too much to kill myself
Though I would still like to jump off a high bridge
At midnight, or paddle a kayak out to sea
Until I turn into a speck, or wear a necktie made of knotted rope
But people would squirm, it would hurt them in some way,
And I am too knowledgeable now to hurt people imprecisely.
No longer do I live by the law of me,
No longer having the excuse of youth or craziness,
And dying you know shows a serious ingratitude
For sunsets and beehive hairdos and the precious green corrugated
Pickles they place at the edge of your plate.
Killing yourself is wasteful, like spilling oil
At sea or not recycling all the kisses you've been given,
And anyway, who has clothes nice enough to be caught dead in?
Not me. You stay alive you stupid asshole
Because you haven't been excused,
You haven't finished though it takes a mulish stubbornness
To chew this food.
It is a stone, it is an inconvenience, it is an innocence,
And I turn against it like a record
Turns against the needle
That makes it play.
The Call
by Kim
Addonizio
A man opens a magazine,
women with no clothes,
their eyes blacked out.
He dials a number,
hums a commercial
under his breath. A voice
tells him he can do
anything he wants to her.
He imagines standing her
against a wall, her saying
Oh baby you feel so good.
It's late. The woman
on the phone yawns,
trails the cord to the hall
to look in on her daughter.
She's curled with one
leg off the couch.
The woman shoulders the receiver,
tucks a sheet and whispers
Yes. Do it. Yes.
She goes to the kitchen,
opens
another Diet Pepsi, wonders
how long it will take him and where
she can find a cheap winter coat.
Remembering the bills
she flips off the light.
He's still saying Soon,
turning his wheelchair right,
left, right. A tube runs down
his pants leg. Sometimes
he thinks he feels something,
stops talking to concentrate
on movement down there.
Hello, the woman says.
You still on?
She rubs a hand over her eyes.
Blue shadow comes off on her fingers.
Over the faint high hiss
of the open line
she hears the wheels knock
from table to wall.
What's that, she says.
Nothing, he tells her,
and they both
listen to it.
if
everything happens that can’t be done
by e.e. cummings
if everything happens that can't be done
(and anything's righter
than books
could plan)
the stupidest teacher will almost guess
(with a run
skip
around we go yes)
there's nothing as something as one
one hasn't a why or because or although
(and buds know better
than books
don't grow)
one's anything old being everything new
(with a what
which
around we go who)
one's everyanything so
so world is a leaf is a tree is a bough
(and birds sing sweeter
than books
tell how)
so here is away and so your is a my
(with a down
up
around again fly)
forever was never till now
now i love you and you love me
(and books are shutter
than books
can be)
and deep in the high that does nothing but fall
(with a shout
each
around we go all)
there's somebody calling who's we
we're everything brighter than even the sun
(we're everything greater
than books
might mean)
we're everyanything more than believe
(with a spin
leap
alive we're alive)
we're wonderful one times one
l(a
by e.e. cummings
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
