Professor Jessica Jacobs Hendrix, ENGC 303: Creative Writing Poetry Fall 2014 Course Schedule: The readings listed for a given date are to be read before that class. Please arrive ready to discuss.

Week 1: Introductions

W, 8.27 Introductions to the course and each other. Ostranenie Exercise Homework: Brief history of yourself as a writer, your intentions/goals in taking this course, any questions you have for me (500-word minimum). Send to Dropbox account by no later than noon on Tuesday, 9.2.

Week 2: Images & Leaps

M, 9.1 NO CLASS—LABOR DAY

W, 9.3 The Poet’s Companion: “Images” Coursesite: , “The Fish” Marie Ponsot, “Separate in the Swim” , “Smell” Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, “The Gospel of Barbecue” Kevin Young, “Expecting” Richard Hugo, “Writing off the Subject” Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day” Matthew Zapruder, “The Prelude”

Week 3: Metaphor, Simile, & Xing/The Music of the Line

M, 9.8 The Poet’s Companion: “Simile and Metaphor” Coursesite: Adrienne Rich, “Dreamwood” Jack Gilbert, “Older Women” Thomas R. Smith, “Trust” Dr. L Kip Wheeler, “On the Xing” Shih Ching (trans. Arthur Waley), “['Fair, fair,' cry the ospreys]” Du Fu (trans. Stephen Owen), “Writes of what he feels, traveling by night”

W, 9.10 The Poet’s Companion: “The Music of the Line,” Coursesite: Laure-Anne Bosselaar & Nickole Brown, “On Line Breaks” William Carlos Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow” Jean Nordhaus, “He is Running” Ari Bania, “Your Wild Domesticated Inner Life” Student Poem Presentation:

Week 4: Grammar & Sound/Writing & Knowing

M, 9.15 The Poet’s Companion: “A Grammatical Excursion” Coursesite: Mary Oliver, “Sound,” “More Devices of Sound” Student Poem Presentation:

W, 9.17 The Poet’s Companion: “Writing and Knowing,” Coursesite: , “Little Pins of Memory” Marianne Boruch, “The Body” Professor Jessica Jacobs Hendrix, ENGC 303: Creative Writing Poetry Fall 2014 Marilyn Nelson, “Dusting” Christopher Smart, from “Jubilate Agno” Anne Sexton, “The Fury of Rainstorms” Mark Doty, “Shelter” Carolyn Forche, “Photograph of My Room” Gerald Stern, “I Remember Galileo” Student Poem Presentation:

Week 5: Who are you? Where do you come from?

M, 9.22 The Poet’s Companion: “The Family: Inspiration and Obstacle” Coursesite: Sharon Olds, “I Go Back to May 1937” , “Those Winter Sundays” Larry Levis, “Winter Stars” Sylvia Plath, “Daddy” Stephen Dunn, “The Routine Things Around the House” Louise Glück, “Widows” Matthew Dickman, “Slow Dance” Matt Rasmussen, “After Suicide” Rhett Iseman Trull, “The Real Warnings Always Come Too Late” Student Poem Presentation: Poems Due: Writing & Knowing Poem Group 1 poems (17 copies each)

W, 9.24 Workshop: GROUP 1 Student Poem Presentation:

Week 6: Poetry of Observation & Place

M, 9.29 The Poet’s Companion: “Poetry of Place” Coursesite: Kevin Young, “Ode to the Midwest” James Wright, “Sitting in a Small Screenhouse on a Summer Morning” and “A Blessing” Jim Wayne Miller, “Abandoned” Jorie Graham, “Tennessee June” Elizabeth Bishop, “Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore” Spencer Reece, from “Florida Ghazals” Nickole Brown, “The Smell of Snake” Poems Due: Family Poem Group 2 poems (17 copies each)

W, 10.1 Workshop: GROUP 2 Student Poem Presentation:

Week 7: Poetry of Grief & Remembrance

M, 10.6 The Poet’s Companion: “Death and Grief” Coursesite: Galway Kinnell, “Wait” Mary Oliver, “When Death Comes” Nickole Brown, “Flitter” , “Blessing the Boats” Bob Hicok, “Elegy with Lies” Professor Jessica Jacobs Hendrix, ENGC 303: Creative Writing Poetry Fall 2014 Corey Van Landingham, “The Architecture of Fathers” and “Elegy” Poems Due: Place Poem Group 3 poems (17 copies each)

W, 10.8 Workshop: GROUP 3 Student Poem Presentation:

Week 8: Poetry of Witness & Protest

M, 10.13 The Poet’s Companion: “Witness” Coursesite: Carolyn Forche, excerpt from introduction to Against Forgetting Interview with Nikky Finney Nikky Finney, “Left” Wislawa Szymborska, “Photograph from September 11” , “Shirt” Poems Due: Death & Grief Poem Group 1 poems (17 copies each)

W, 10.15 Workshop: GROUP 1 Student Poem Presentation:

Week 9: Poetry of Love, Sex, & Longing

M, 10.20 The Poet’s Companion: “Writing the Erotic” Coursesite: Matthew Olzmann, “Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem” e.e. cummings, “[somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond]” Jack Gilbert, “Tear it Down” Martha Serpas, “Finishing Touch” Sharon Olds, “Sex Without Love” Charles Simic, “Breasts” Mary Ruefle, “Perpetually Attempting to Soar” Tony Hoagland, “History of Desire” Pablo Neruda, “XX” Poems Due: Witness Poem Group 2 poems (17 copies each)

W, 10.22 Workshop: GROUP 2 Student Poem Presentation:

Week 10: Research & Persona

M, 10.27 The Poet’s Companion: “Voice & Style” (pp. 122-128) Coursesite: Patricia Smith, “8 a.m., Sunday, August 28, 2005” and “Ethel’s Sestina” Robert Hayden, “Night, Death, Mississippi” Eavan Boland, “Pomegranate” Nico Alvarado, “Tim Riggins Speaks of Waterfalls” Greg Santos, “Hulk Smash!” Poems Due: Erotic Poem Group 3 poems (17 copies each)

Professor Jessica Jacobs Hendrix, ENGC 303: Creative Writing Poetry Fall 2014 W, 10.29 Workshop: GROUP 3 Student Poem Presentation:

Literary Event: Thurs., Oct. 30: An Evening with Murphy Visiting Writer Nathan Englander Mr. Englander will be on campus Oct. 29-31. He is the author of two short story collections (What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank and For the Relief of Unbearable Urges), a novel about the Disappeared in Argentina (The Ministry of Special Cases), and a translation of the Haggadah. His fiction has much to do with identity, politics, and relationships. http://www.nathanenglander.com/

Week 11: On Meter, Rhyme, & Form; The Sonnet

M, 11.3 The Poet’s Companion: “Meter, Rhyme, & Form” Coursesite: William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 147” Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Sonnet XLIII” John Donne, “Holy Sonnet 14” Henri Cole, “Oil & Steel” Olena Kalytiak Davis, “Francesca Says More” Poems Due: Persona Poem Group 1 poems (17 copies each)

W, 11.5 NO CLASS—Professor at a conference

Week 12: Workshops

M, 11.10 Workshop: GROUP 1 Student Poem Presentation: Poems Due: Sonnet Group 2 poems (17 copies each)

W, 11.12 Workshop: GROUP 2 Student Poem Presentation: Poems Due: Group 3 poems (17 copies each)

Week 13: On Revision

M, 11.17 Workshop: GROUP 3 Student Poem Presentation: Poems Due: Writer’s Choice

W, 11.19 The Poet’s Companion: “The Energy of Revision” Coursesite: Interview, “How Wrote Her Father’s Elegy” “Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘One Art,’ Sixteen Drafts for Nineteen Lines” Student Poem Presentation: Poems Due: Bring the poems you are considering revising, as hard copies or on a laptop/tablet Small Group Workshop poems (5 copies of the assigned poem of your choice)

Professor Jessica Jacobs Hendrix, ENGC 303: Creative Writing Poetry Fall 2014 Week 14: On Revision

M, 11.24 Small Group Workshops Student Poem Presentation: Homework: Send the three poems you intend to revise for your final portfolio to my Dropbox account by no later than midnight on Friday, 11.28

W, 11.26 NO CLASS—THANKSGIVIING BREAK

Week 15: Individual Conferences

M, 12.1 NO CLASS—INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES

W, 12.3 NO CLASS—INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES

Week 16: Mutual Admiration Society

M, 12.8 Student Poetry Reading

Josephine Jacobsen

Gentle Reader

Late in the night when I should be asleep under the city stars in a small room I read a poet. A poet: not A versifier. Not a hot-shot ethic-monger, laying about him; not a diary of lying about in cruel cruel beds, crying. A poet, dangerous and steep.

O God, it peels me, juices me like a press; this poetry drinks me, eats me, gut and marrow until I exist in its jester's sorrow, until my juices feed a savage sight that runs along the lines, bright as beasts' eyes. The rubble splays to dust: city, book, bed, leaving my ear's lust saying like Molly, yes, yes, yes O yes.