English 386
Modern and Contemporary Poetry
Fall 2007
Dr. Stan Galloway, Bowman 304
Hours: MW: 10-11, 1-3, TR: 11-12:30, and by appt.
http://www.bridgewater.edu/~sgallowa/eng386.html
sgallowa@bridgewater.edu
828-5339
Texts:
Frost, Robert. A Collection of Poems. Ed. Robert C. Petersen. The Wadsworth
Casebook Series for Reading, Research, and Writing. Boston: ThomsonWadsworth, 2004.
Hall, Donald. To Read a Poem. Second ed. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1992.
Hughes, Langston. A Collection of Poems. Ed. James C. Hall. The Harcourt
Brace Casebook Series in Literature. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1998.
Papers: Five papers of 3-4 pages exploring a poem from the previous reading
will each account for 10% of the grade. The first paper will address a
poem by Robert Frost. The lowest grade of the five papers will be
dropped.
Collection Report: Each student will write a report of 4-6 pages on an entire
collection of poems by an assigned author. Though the report should not
be written conversationally, the diction should reflect the intent that it will
be delivered orally. The report will include the date of publication and
publisher, the placement of the collection in relation to other collections by
the author, an evaluative overview of the collection as a whole, reference
to at least two reviews or critics of the collection, and close analysis of at
least 2 poems not assigned in class. A standard MLA works cited page
must be included. The collection report relieves the student of an
additional paper during the period when the other papers are due.
Collection Presentation: Each student will deliver orally their collection report in
5-10 minutes. The presentation should include a reading of the poem or
of a significant portion of the poem. Audio or visual aids are welcome but
not required. The student should dress professionally for this
presentation. The collection report shall be turned in at the time of
presentation.
Attendance Policy: You are expected to attend class. Students involved in
sanctioned school functions will make arrangements prior to the class
period missed, allowing enough lead time to complete any alternate
assignments that may need to be done. (These assignments do not "make
up" for the class missed; they only show you have kept up with the
material.) Though no absence is beneficial to you, you will be allowed 6
absences (two weeks) regardless of reason before you receive an
automatic F for the course. This is an absolute departmental standard, so
you should make no absence that can be avoided. If you believe your
involvement in other campus activities will rob you of more than 6 days,
consult with me immediately.
Exams 3
15% each
Papers 5 (drop 1) 10% each
Collection Report 10%
Collection Presentation 5%
Sep
45%
40%
10%
5%
5
Introduction: discussion including Emily Dickinson: “He fumbles at
your Soul” (139) Walt Whitman: “Cavalry Crossing a Ford” (350), Gerard
Manley Hopkins: “I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark” (71-72), Thomas
Hardy: Transformations (45-46).
7
Robert Frost: “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (1-8),
“After Apple-Picking” (148-49, F20-21), “Birches” (149-50, F22-23), “Two
Look at Two” (F24-25), “Mending Wall” (F19-20), “The Figure a Poem
Makes” (F33-35), “Imagination as Transcendence in Robert Frost” (F7580).
10
Robert Frost: “Desert Places” (152, F26), “Home Burial” (145-48),
“In White” and “Design” (114-16), “Writing About Poems” excerpt including
“A Patch of Old Snow” (369-82), “The Secretive-Playful Epiphanies of
Robert Frost: Solitude, Companionship, and the Ambivalent Imagination”
(F54-62).
12
William Butler Yeats: “Adam’s Curse,” “The Second Coming”
(364-65), “Leda and the Swan” (365), “The Circus Animals’ Desertion.”
Paper due.
14
Wilfred Owen: “Dulce et Decorum Est” (300-01), “Disabled,”
Preface, Pigg’s essay “Owen’s ‘Disabled’”; Carl Sandburg: “Chicago”
(316) “Fog,” “They Will Say,” Johansen’s article “Sandburg’s ‘They Will
Say’.”
17
Ezra Pound: “The Bath Tub” (106), “In a Station of the Metro,”
Cantos I, Cantos XLV, “A Retrospect.”
19
William Carlos Williams: “The Red Wheelbarrow” (9-11), “The
Young Housewife,” “The Great Figure,” “Spring and All” (352), “This Is
Just to Say” (352).
21
D.H. Lawrence: “Piano” (271), “Snake,” “Bavarian Gentians” (270).
24
Marianne Moore: “Silence” (19-20), “Poetry,” “Baseball and
Writing”; HD: “Heat” 22-23, “Helen,” “Stars Wheel in Purple.”
26
T.S. Eliot: “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (226-31), “The
Wasteland,” “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” Paper due.
28
Langston Hughes: “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (H20), “The
Weary Blues” (H21), “Let America Be America Again” (H23-25), “The
Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (H36-40), “Challenging the
Oct
Nov
Father/Challenging the Self: Langston Hughes’s ‘The Negro Speaks of
Rivers’” (H116-23)
1
Langston Hughes: “Theme for English B” (H28-29), “Dream
Boogie” (H30), “Harlem” (H31), “’Midnight Ruffles of Cat-Gut Lace’: The
Boogie Poems of Langston Hughes” (H65-75), “Dead Rocks and Sleeping
Men: Aurality in the Aesthetic of Langston Hughes” (H97-103).
3
Edna St. Vincent Millay: “First Fig,” “Love Is Not All;It Is Not Meat
Nor Drink,” “The Plaid Dress”. W.H. Auden: “Musee des Beaux Arts”
(185-86), “Shield of Achilles.”
5
Exam
8
no class, fall break
10
Charles Olson: “Pacific Lament,” “I, Maximus of Gloucester, to
You,” Projective Verse. Robert Creeley: “The Door” “Mother’s Voice,” and
“The Conspiracy.”
12
Theodore Roethke: “Night Journey,” “My Papa’s Waltz” (156),
“The Lost Son” (156-60).
15
Robert Lowell: “Quaker Graveyard at Nantucket,” “Skunk Hour”
(277-79), “For the Union Dead” (279-80); Richard Wilbur: “Still Citizen
Sparrow” (351) and “A Barred Owl.”
17
Elizabeth Bishop: “The Fish” (193-94), “The Map,” “In the Waiting
Room,” “One Art.” Paper due.
19
Dylan Thomas: “Fern Hill” (339-41), “Do Not Go Gentle into That
Good Night” (341); Gwendolyn Brooks: “We Real Cool” (198),
“Blackstone Rangers” and “The Bean Eaters” (198).
22
Allen Ginsberg: “Howl” 337-44, “First Party at Ken Kesey’s with
Hell’s Angels” (23-24); Lawrence Ferlinghetti: “Constantly Risking
Absurdity.”
24
Dennis Brutus: “Sharpeville,” “Nightsong: City,” and “HIV/AIDS”.
Howard Nemerov: “The Ice-House in Summer” and “Learning by Doing”.
26
Sylvia Plath: “The Colossus,” “Daddy,” “Ariel,” “Lady Lazarus”
(303-04). [view Voices & Visions]
29
W.S. Merwin: “Drunk in the Furnace,” “Anniversary on the Island”
[scroll down], “Term,” “Rain at Night,” “Conqueror.” [view W.S. Merwin:
The Rain in the Trees]
31
Ted Hughes: “Thought-Fox” and “Thistles”; Li-Young Lee: “Eating
Alone” (72-73), “From Blossoms” (271-72), “Persimmons”. Paper due.
2
William Stafford: “Travelling Through the Dark” (331-32),
“At the Bomb Testing Site,” “Ask Me,” and “A Way of Writing.”
5
Exam
7
Denise Levertov: “Overland to the Island,” “Pleasures,” “The World
Outside” (26), “Olga Poems,” “Caedmon,” “Some Notes on Organic Form
[par. 1-3]”.
9
Galway Kinnell: “First Song” 382, “After Making Love We Hear
Footsteps,” “Blackberry Eating.”
Dec
12
Derek Walcott: “A Far Cry from Africa,” “Season of Phantasmal
Peace”; Wole Soyinka: “Telephone Conversation,” “Lost Poems,” and
“Hamlet, or Nigeria’s a Prison.”
14
Lucille Clifton: “Homage to My Hips,” “I Am Accused of Tending
to the Past.” Paper due.
16
Adrienne Rich: “Diving into the Wreck,” “When We Dead Awaken”
(including “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,” [168-69] “The Loser,” “Orion,” “Thinking
of Caroline Herschel, 1754-1848, astronomer, sister of William; and
others”); see discussion page from Chris Torino at University of Louisville.
19
Seamus Heaney: “Digging,” “Death of a Naturalist,” “Bogland.”
26
Sharon Olds: “I Go Back to May 1937,” “Topography,” and “The
Unborn.”
28
Mary Oliver: “The Black Snake,” “August,” “Hawk.”
30
Don Maclennan: Notes from a Rhenish Mission [on reserve],
“Poetry,” and “An Open Window.”
3
Rita Dove: “Dusting,” “Lint” (24-25), and “Horse and Tree” (22223); Claudia Emerson: “Second Bearing, 1919” and “The Bat.”
5
Maria Mazziotti Gillan: “Growing Up Italian” (scroll down), “The
Moment I Knew My Life Had Changed,” “I Dream of My
Grandmother and Great-Grandmother.” Paper due.
8
Final Exam, 8 a.m.