ENGL 406: Advanced Poetry Writing, Fall 2006

OFFICE HOURS:

3:30-4:30 p.m. T, Th
2-3 p.m. W

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

“Intensive work in writing and critiquing poetry. Students seeking graduate credit will produce a greater quantity and higher quality of original work, will have a separate and more extensive reading list, and will be expected to participate more fully in class activities. May be repeated for up to six credit hours. PREREQ: ENGL 305 of PERM/INST.”

ENGL 406 is for students who have been writing and thinking about poems seriously during their undergraduate careers. In this course you are asked to write and read every week, a practice that continues habits you have learned in previous classes and that poets universally have adhered to. The work of the course is intended to help solidify your knowledge of American poetry, define aesthetic issues that are important for your own work, and improve your ability to analyze literature as a critic.

In this section, we will read from Paul Hoover's anthology Postmodern American Poetry, studying poets from the final half of the twentieth century. In addition, we will read books by two of the poets visiting Boise State this semester, Kent Johnson and Cole Swensen. Students will present poems from these texts, and each student will write a response to one poem from each assigned reading. Responses can be turned in on any of the days we discuss the book in class; late responses will be graded down.

All students are expected to have a basic knowledge of the use of computer word-processing software, e-mail, and web navigation. Basic terms of prosody (meters, forms, tropes) and knowledge of workshop etiquette are assumed.

Hoover, Postmodern American Poetry

Johnson, Lyric Poetry After Auschwitz
Swensen, Goest
Yasusada, Doubled Flowering

All texts are required, and all students must bring the appropriate texts to class each meeting.

Students will write a poem each week. There will be no fixed assignments for poems, but students are encouraged to use the texts as guides or “models.” (Visual artists frequently copy renowned artworks as part of their education; poets likewise select poems by others to use as models for their own work, whether in form, subject matter, tone, or otherwise.)

Make a copy of your weekly poem for each person in workshop, including the professor. Please put your name, date, and the class number in the upper right corner of the page. Poems are due on Tuesdays. Students are expected to read the poems their peers write as carefully as they read assigned texts for any class, and to respond to those works seriously and fully. A written response to all poems should be given to the author and to the instructor; responses to books read and readings attended are given to the instructor only. Anything you write on the text of the poem should be used as a prompt for your workshop commentary. Get a folder for the workshop poems and keep the poems of each of your colleagues together. When a student’s work is to be presented in workshop, any of the distributed poems may be discussed. Bring this folder to every class.

The final class meeting will be a reading during which you will present some of the work you did during the semester. At that meeting you will turn in a chapbook of your semester’s writing to the instructor; this is meant to be a final compilation of the best, revised work you have written. It will not be returned.

The class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 75 minutes. Most days, the first 20 minutes will consist of a student presentation and discussion of the reading assignment. (These are student-led discussions.) In the remaining 55 minutes, the poems of 5 students will be workshopped.

Because of the workshop component of class, attendance is required. If for some reason you cannot attend class, please notify the professor by e-mail or phone in advance. Three absences will be allowed provided the professor is notified. After a fourth absence, unless the student is excused by a doctor or the dean of students, the final grade may be effected. However, absences can be “erased” if the student (1) memorizes and recites a poem, or (2) attends and reports upon a non-required reading.

A great benefit of attending Boise State is that many writers visit during the year to read and discuss their work. In this class, all students will be required to attend the readings by Cole Swensen on September 22 and Kent Johnson on October 6. Please make arrangements to be at these readings. The times and locations will be announced in class, as will additional readings students may attend.

Other readings scheduled for the fall:

Wave Bus Tour, Thursday, Sept. 7, Neurolux, 8 p.m.

Noah Eli Gordon, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, and Paul Fattaruso, Saturday, Oct. 22

Evident preparation for and participation in discussions and critique sessions: 20%

Presentation of all work (poetry assignments, reading responses, presentations, workshop critiques, and final chapbook) according to agreed-upon schedules and standards: 50%

Quality of work and marked improvement: 20%

Attendance: 10%

Extra Credit and Absence Erasure: Please see me for a list of texts that can be memorized for extra credit, absence erasure, or the sheer pleasure of having them in your head.