Blog Entry Eight: Formalist Poetry

Pick one of the forms discussed in our reading (Sonnet, Villanelle, Ghazal, Pantoum, etc) and write a poem in that form. It is not uncommon for contemporary poems to "play" with these forms--straying purposefully from iambic pentameter, complicating the rhyme scheme, etc. If you have trouble deciding which form to use and how to use it, read this to help you better understand why certain poets make certain formal choices.

Along with your poem, please write at least 250 words explaining why you chose the form you did, how it is meant to complement the content/image/idea of your poem, and, if you decided to stray from some of the form's rules, tell me which aspects and for what purpose. The main point of your summary is identifying the purpose of your formal choices.

Due by class Thursday, March 1. Please bring a copy of your poem to class. 

Extra Credit

If you submit your work to a literary journal, magazine, or contest, you may receive extra credit worth one blog entry. The same goes for attending any non-required readings or creative writing-related lectures, as well as attending/joining any creative writing clubs on campus. 

In order to receive credit, please forward your submission email to me. Also, if you attend a reading that isn't required (an extra poetry reading, for instance), simply write a reflection on your blog and then email me letting me know. If you join a creative writing club and attend at least one meeting, have one of the club's leaders email me confirming your attendance.

*Another Extra Credit Option: You may write a 500 word review of the issue of Problem Child that was handed out in class today. Post the review to your blog and then email me to let me know it's up. I have many extra copies, which I'll bring to class on Tuesday. This extra credit assignment will be due by the Tuesday after Spring Break. 

What is Formal Poetry and why should you care?

Burch, Michael. "Formal Poetry and Related Terms: Formalism, New Formalism, Neo-Formalism, Pseudo-Formalism, Neo-Classicism, Traditional Poetry, and the Multitudinous Variations Thereof," The HyperTexts.

 

Blog Entry Seven: Poetry in Conversation

Find a published poem that you admire. If you don't know where to start, think of poets you are already familiar with or begin by reading the poems anthologized in our book. You might also try digging around on various websites like The Poetry Foundation or an online literary magazine like Word Riot or WW Norton's Tumblr. Once you find the perfect poem--the one that sparks your imagination, that resonates with you and your own experiences of the world--respond to the poem with a poem of your own. It doesn't matter whether you respond to the subject of the other person's poem, or just a single line or image contained in the poem. Generally, it's most effective to respond to the moment of maximum energy or tension in the published poem. Identify what excites you about the poem; then make the same thing happen in your own work.

Aside from your own poem, please include the poem (including the author's name and date of publication) to which you are responding. Think of your poems as being in conversation with one another.

Due by class Thursday, February 23

Blog Entry Six: Horoscope Poem

Write a poem with the prompt "Horoscope." Go!

And don't forget to print out your poem and bring it to class with you on Thursday, February 16.

Due: By class, February 16, Duh. 

Nonfiction Reading, David Gessner, February 20, 8 PM, Foster Auditorium

David Gessner, an award winning nature writer best known for his edgy and humorous style and interest in ospreys and Ultimate Frisbee, will read from his work in the Foster Auditorium in the Paterno Library on the campus of Penn State, University Park, at 8:00 p.m. on Monday, February 20.  The lecture is free and open to the public.  Gessner’s most acclaimed work is the book Return of the Osprey (2001) and a sequel about following osprey migration to Cuba and South America, Soaring with Fidel (2007). His work is also closely associated with Cape Cod, including a memoir of his father’s death from cancer, A Wild, Rank Place (1997) and his account of his experiences with the Cape Cod naturalist and writer, John Hay, The Prophet of Dry Hill (2005).  Gessner has also published an account of his experiences as a student writer in Boulder, Colorado, in Under the Devil’s Thumb (1999), and a collection of essays, Sick of Nature (2004), in which he tangles with such topics as the influence of Thoreau on his writing and thinking; his relationship with his teacher, the literary biographer Walter Jackson Bate; and his long quest to win an Ultimate Frisbee national championship.  Gessner’s work has appeared in numerous magazines, including Orion, OnEarth, The New York Times Magazine andAmerican Scholar.  His essay about pelicans, “Learning to Surf,” won a John Burroughs Award in 2007 for the best natural history essay of the year. One Orion reviewer characterized Gessner’s writing as “Comical, energetic, and reverentially irreverent.” The Atlanta Journal Constitution called The Tarball Chronicles “a a full-strength antidote to the Kryptonite of corporate greed and ignorance,” and Publisher’s Weekly dubbed it “Brilliant.”

Blog Entry Five: Experimental Revision

For the fifth blog entry were gonna fiddle around with what you might call "experimental revision." Sometimes these experimental revisions work and sometimes they don't, but it's an approach a lot of writers use when trying to see what craft elements will suit their story best. Sometimes, you don't know until you try it and even if your experiment fails, you'll be all the more sure that your craft decisions were the right ones.

Here's what I want you to do: pick a chunk of your nonfiction essay; it can be a paragraph or the whole essay, if you like, whatever works best for you and your experiment. I then want you to do ONE of the following:

1. Change the tense. If your essay is in past tense see what it will work in present tense or vice versa. OR you could try to only change the tense of specific sections if you like.
2. Change the perspective. If you are writing in 1st person, see what it would sound like in 2nd person direct address.
3. Play with dialogue formatting. The formatting of dialogue has a profound effect on reading. You can eliminate your quotation marks a la Cormac McCarthy, or you could try putting dialogue into free, indirect discourse. You could try writing dialogue in order to mimic an accent (like Jonathan Safran Foer does in Everything Is Illuminated). Think of how the dialogue of one your favorite books is used and try to mimic that style, if you like. There are an infinite number of ways to format and manipulate dialogue. Try one!
4. Play with the order of events or ideas. If your piece is told chronologically, try mixing it up to jump around in time, or vice versa. Try rearranging the order of your ideas in a single paragraph so the logic flows better. Include section breaks and add in transitions to improve pacing.

Again, choose only ONE of these elements to experiment with to see if such a change would improve your essay. In your blog entry, please include BOTH the original excerpt as well as the changed excerpt.
Then, at the end, briefly state whether you will stick with the change or not. Why? How did this experiment affect your essay? Did it make the action awkward, confusing? Did it help further develop character or improve pacing?

Due by Thursday, February 9

Flash Fiction Writing Contest