English 2123: Poetry

Introduction to poetry, Texas Woman's University

[english2123]

[english2123]

Digital Journal #12

This is the last one of the semester... *sniff. sniff*

Our last of 3 reflections posts. This one is due by Friday at 9:30 am. < Yes. That is an extension.> I want you to really think this one through and answer the prompt with lots of thought and rereading.

Digital Journal #12

Step 1: Review the definitions of euphony and cacophony. You can find them on page 187 of your text. Notice that Meyer writes, "the sounds of words in poetry can be as significant as the words' denotative or connotative meanings" (187).

Step 2: Find 2 poems in this 2nd section of the course. So, something that we have discussed or read since your mid-term. Use the calendar! The 1st poem should exhibit euphony in some form. The 2nd should exhibit cacophony in some form. (It could even be 1 poem that exhibits both.)

Step 3: Offer the section of the poem you see as euphonic. And answer the question: How does the euphony affect the meaning of the poem's meaning?

Step 4: Offer the section of the poem you see as discordant (see the definition of cacophony). How does the cacophony affect he poem's meaning?

For example:

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" has both elements of euphony and cacophony.

Each stanza rises with euphony and falls quickly with an element of discordance:

Then into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon I heard again a tapping, somewhat louder than before.

"Surely," said I, surely that is something at my window lattice;

Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore --

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; --

                                         "'Tis the wind, and nothing more!"  (lines 31-36)

In this stanza, the hard "t" sounds happen in the middle of the first 2 lines, "turning" and "tapping." This helps to create a euphonic wave of sound. Then, there is discord thrown in at the last line: "'Tis the wind, and nothing more!" This transition in the poem helps to keep the poem itself rolling along in each stanza, but then creates a stop at the very end. The reader, then, pays closer attention to this last line. 

You might go back and look again at this poem. The beginning line of each stanza begins this process all over again. Poe writes the first 3 lines of each stanza with just a touch of discord. Then the 4th and 5th line of each stanza roll into and over one another, even ending in the same 2 words: "chamber door," " chamber door." (line 40 and 41). He then throws discord in to wake the reader up out of the sleep: "Perched,". (42) Seems pretty interesting considering the poem may be about a dream. (Meyer writes, "the sounds of words in poetry can be as significant as the words' denotative or connotative meanings" (187).)

[english2123]

“Sometimes [poetry] holds your hand to the fire—but, even so, it holds your hand.”

~ Joan Murray, 2002 Bloomsbury Review interview

[english2123]

Digital Journal Posting #11

I titled these last 3 journal postings "Reflections" because you are being asked to look back over your semester of learning in order to complete them. The idea here is that if you complete them thoughtfully, doing so will help you to review and to deepen your learning and thinking about poetry. That's the idea.

Journal #11 instructions:

Step 1: Choose one of the concepts I listed under the title "Some of the terms/concepts you should have mastered:" in the previous post on our class tumblr. This post is titled "Week 14 Beginnings."

Step 2: Review its meaning and how poets have used the concept.

Step 3: Choose 2 poems and discuss in your journal posting how the concept is present or exhibited in them. Don't feel it necessary to transcribe the entire poems in your journal; you might just quote the lines that closely exhibit the concept you have chosen. But, you aren't wasting any paper here (digital ;-), so how much of the poems you transcribe is completely up to you. Your discussion of the concept as you see it exhibited in each poem must be no less than 5 sentences. 

Note: I highly suggest you not cheat yourself by writing 5 short sentences just to get this post completed. I also highly suggest that if you are working in pairs, which is completely fine, you choose 2 different concepts, poems, and connections to write about. 

[english2123]

Week 14 Beginnings

This week is all about reviewing... well and for giving thanks.

Here are our topics to review:

Rhythm (Chapter 7 and Chapter 8)

Poetic forms OR Sonnets, Haikus, Oh my... (Chapter 9)

Open form or Free verse (Chapter 10)

Poetry is Political (Audre Lorde, Martín Espada, Kyle Dargan, Gwendolyn Brooks)

Silences (Eavan Boland and Gloria E. Anzaldúa)

Poetic Conversations: Emily Dickinson (this includes Billy Collins' "Taking Off Emily Disckinson's Clothes" and Joan Murray's "Taking Off Billy Collins' Clothes")

For those of you who will be in class on Tuesday, take advantage of the opportunity. Come prepared with questions. What didn't you understand clearly? What did you think you understood then and now is no longer quite clear? Review your notes, what are you now questioning?

Some of the terms/concepts you should have mastered:

ballad; alliteration; onomatopoeia; assonance; consonance; rhyme; near rhyme; end rhyme; internal rhyme; exact rhyme; rhythm; scansion (the definition); meter; rising meter; falling meter; line; foot; enjambment; stanza; rhyme scheme; couplet; sonnet (Petrarchan/Italian and Shakespearean/English); octave; sestet; villanelle; sestina; epigram; elegy; ode; haiku; parody; found poetry; free verse and open form; euphony; cacophony; silence; caras; IAP: Irony, ambiguity, paradox; 

Some of the terms/concepts you should recognize (but not necessarily have mastered):

trochee, iamb, anapest, dactyl, tercet, quatrain, spondee, political, subverting, scansion (the methodology), using dashes, definition poems

Remember, as promised, I will not ask you to scan a poem on your exam; however, I will possibly have a scanned poem on the exam from which there will be questions. Meaning: you should review this as well.

Also: and this is very important: You will be asked to remember some poems and their poets. I will be shrinking this list for you on Tuesday.

Note: Our course SLO's suggested that a successful student will be able to do the following upon completion of the course: 

1. To demonstrate awareness of the scope and variety of works in the arts and humanities.

2. To understand those works as expressions of individual and human values within an historical and social context.

3. To respond critically to works in the arts and humanities.

4. To engage in the creative process or interpretive performance and comprehend the physical and intellectual demands required of the author or visual or performing artist.

5. To articulate an informed personal reaction to works in the arts and humanities.

6. To develop an appreciation for the aesthetic principles that guide or govern the humanities and arts.

7. To demonstrate knowledge of the influence of literature, philosophy, and/or the arts on intercultural experiences. 

I am proud of our learning community this semester. I feel that those of you who have put your time and effort into this course are showing evidence of having reached these objectives in your Reading Notes, in your journal entries, and in our conversation. Well done!

[english2123]

Week 13 Wrap-up

In class we talked about the layered nature of Dickinson's poems. I gave you a methodology with which to dig through these layers. It won't work for every layer, but it will help you to "see" and to learn much from Dickinson's work. 

I want to end your week with Dickinson by pointing to the portion of Martha Nell Smith's essay you are given on page 339 of your text. The full essay can be found in the text Comic Power in Emily Dickinson (which is available to you through UNT's library...psst - just in case anyone may be interested as they look to writing RN 3). Okay back to the point... Smith writes "That this poem ["Because I could not stop for Death --"] begins and ends with humanity's ultimate dream of self-importance -- Immortality and Eternity -- could well be the joke central to its meaning, for Dickinson carefully surrounds the fantasy of living ever after with the dirty facts of life -- dusty carriage rides, schoolyards, and farmers' fields" (339). If we then consider this poem as another poet pointing to the ultimate irony of the Universe not waiting for we humans, even though we are often guilty of behaving as if the universe revolves around us/our species/our thoughts/our societies.

We could compare this poem then to Stephen Crane's "A Man Said to the Universe,"

A Man Said to the Universe   (1899)

A man said to the universe: 

"Sir, I exist!"

"However," replied the universe,

"The fact has not created in me

A sense of obligation."

[english2123]

Week 12 Wrap-up

I am sorry to be behind on my tumblr posting responsibilities. I am catching up today. ;-)

The concept I find myself wanting to return to with regard to the commonalities with our readings (essays and poems) from Eavan Boland and Gloria E. Anzaldúa. In the "Beginnings" post I asked the following questions:

What are the commonalities in these 2 poets’ essays and thoughts on the importance of making silence visible? Why is it important that they break the traditions that were set before them as they began their creative, poetic, thinking, scribing journeys?

These two poets are very different in many ways. I paired them together as they both speak about revealing silences and thereby breaking constraining and damaging stereotypes and tropes. For both the stereotype, the ideal, the trope of woman/woman of color constrained them so that they both had to break it in order to create in an authentic manner.

In your reflections, many of you paired either Boland or Anzaldúa with modern poets, many of which are battling their own constraining stereotypes, ideals, and tropes. Is there something that we might move backwards in time and learn about a pre-modern poet using the concepts Boland and Anzaldúa reveal to us?

For example: How is Jonson using the stereotype of "Lady," while also breaking it down in "Still to Be Neat"?

Ben Jonson (1573-1637)

  Still to Be Neat     1609

  Still* to be neat, still to be dressed,

As you were going to a feast;

Still to be powdered, still perfumed;

Lady, it is to be presumed,

Though art's hid causes are not found,

All is not sweet, all is not sound.

  Give me a look, give me a face

That makes simplicity a grace;

Robes loosely flowing, hair as free;

Such sweet neglect more taketh me

Then all th’ adulteries of art.

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

*Still in this poem is meant to mean "continually" (Meyer 226).

[english2123]

Digital Journal #10

Reflections.

This week is meant to challenge your thinking about the how. How does poetry (or any other art for that matter) subvert? How can it subvert? Not all poetry (art) subverts by any means. But, when it does, how does it subvert? What is it subverting? Why is it subverting? When I, the reader, am given a new way to look at the world around me, am I changed? What does the poet go through in order to offer me this differing perspective?

(OED) to subvert means to:

c. To corrupt (a moral code, a concept, a person's outlook, etc.); to alter from what is right or proper; (also) to distort (truth). In neutral or positive sense: to transform, change.

 6. trans. orig. Literary Criticism. To challenge and undermine (a conventional idea, form, genre, etc.), esp. by using or presenting it in a new or unorthodox way.

Anzaldúa writes, "Art is a sneak attack while the giant sleeps, a sleight of the hands when the giant is awake, moving so quick they can do their deed before the giant swats them. Our survival depends on being creative" ("Haciendo caras, una entrada" xxiv).

I gave you two poets this week who are very open about their respective processes, Boland and Anzaldúa. Both of these poets are known for their essays about writing and the struggles they overcame and continue to overcome in order to create in their own style.

Digital Journal #10 instructions:

Step 1: Finish reading the assigned poems and essays, if you haven't already done so.

Step 2: We were able to run through the essays today in class. That's what it felt like, running. So, now I am going to ask you to walk through them. I would like you to connect something from either Eavan Boland's essays "Outside History," " Subject Matters," or "Making a Difference" OR  Gloria E. Anzaldúa's "Haciendo caras, una entrada" to a poem that we have read at some point in the semester. Is there something in the essay that helps you to "see" or to "read" the poem differently now? Is there an idea in one of these essays that clarifies something that was before difficult to understand? We have read many, many poems that are subverting. You should be able to find lots of options.

Step 3: Offer your classmates (And me ;-) the quote of the essay from either Boland or Anzaldúa. Be sure to cite it so that we know which poet and which essay you are quoting. 

Step 4: Offer a section of the poem you are connecting.

Step 5: Explain your thoughts in 4 to 5 sentences. How are these two connecting for you? Is there something in the essay that helps you to "see" or to "read" the poem differently now? Is there an idea in one of these essays that clarifies something that was before difficult to understand?

** This journal is due by 9:30 AM Thursday morning. We will not have class. This journal will instead count as your attendance.

[mymodernmet]

Motivational posters by Be Happy.

[english2123]

Week 12 Beginnings

I have purposely stayed silent until today so that you could enjoy your readings with out my commentary. This will be a short beginning statement as I want to continue to allow you your time with these 2 poets, Eavan Boland and Gloria E. Anzaldúa. These are longer readings. Don't wait until Tuesday morning. You will not be successful.

My hope is that you will see these readings as the writings of two poets who have opened spaces for many, many other poets, writers, thinkers, and activists. 

Boland writes, 

I am writing not about aesthetics but about the ethics which are altogether less visible in a poetic tradition. Who the poet is, what he or she nominates as a proper theme for poetry, what selves poets discover and confirm through this subject matter -- all of this involves an ethical choice. The more volatile the material -- and a wounded history, public or private, is always volatile -- the more intensely ethical the choice. ("Outside History" 127)

What are the commonalities in these 2 poets' essays and thoughts on the importance of making silence visible? Why is it important that they break the traditions that were set before them as they began their creative, poetic, thinking, scribing journeys?

Your digital journal is not due until Thursday and will count as your attendance for Thursday. As such, I will post the instructions for your journal on Tuesday after class. You will have had to have read these essays and poems in order to complete it.

Again, I add

**Allowing yourself the space and time to think about these and many other issues is important. We are all busy. We are all students. And most of us are parenting and working. I empathize completely. But, give yourself the space to consider your thoughts. Sit down with a cup of tea and just think about your readings. Close the door after the kids are sleeping. Find a place where your room mate(s) won’t interrupt you.

Write down your thoughts. Don’t cheat yourself of your own space and your own thinking. I can’t emphasize the importance of this enough.

[english2123]

Week 11 Wrap-up

In the essay "Transformation of Silence into Language and Action," Audre Lorde writes "For those of us who write, it is necessary to scrutinize not only the truth of what we speak, but the truth of that language by which we speak" (43).  I would like to end week 11's conversation on politics and poetry by pointing out that Lorde uses a little t when writing truth. This is an important concept as we move forward. 

What is the difference between big T Truth and t truth? Big T truth suggests that there is one Truth for all, everyone, all of us. t truth suggests that we each come to our own little t truths; therefore, there shouldn't be only one T Truth.

This concept is laden with philosophical and metaphysical conversation and arguments. Lots and lots of papyrus, paper, and vellum has been sacrificed for the greater good in the name of this conversation. We can talk about this on Tuesday. I introduce the concept only to add to your thinking as we move forward into week 12.

[lademarche]

…I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple–or a green field—a place to enter, and in which to feel. Only in a secondary way is it an intellectual thing—an artifact, a moment of seemly and robust wordiness—wonderful as that part of it is. I learned that the poem was made not just to exist, but to speak—to be company. It was everything that was needed, when everything was needed.

Mary Oliver, on poetry (via lademarche)

[english2123]

This is poetry as illumination, for it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are -- until the poem -- nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt.

Audre Lorde "Poetry Is Not a Luxury"

[english2123]

A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement by Alicia Garza

By Alicia Garza I created #BlackLivesMatter with Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, two of my sisters, as a call to action for Black people after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was post-humously placed on trial for his own murder and the killer, George Zimmerman, was not held accountable for the crime he committed. It was a response to the anti-Black racism that permeates our society and also, unfortunately, our movements. Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise.  It is an affirmation of Black folks’ contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression. We were humbled when cultural workers, artists, designers and techies offered their labor and love to expand #BlackLivesMatter beyond a social media hashtag. Opal, Patrisse, and I created the infrastructure for this movement project---moving the hashtag from [...]

[english2123]

Welcome to Black Life Matters: An organization dedicated to the betterment of the African American community.

[english2123]

[english2123]