English 205
Introduction to Creative Writing
Spring 2012
Poetry & Workshop Calendar
N.B. Workshop poems are due emailed to me before the previous day’s class, i.e. if your poem is being workshopped on a
Friday, send me your poem before class on Wednesday; or for a Monday workshop, before the previous Friday’s class.
POETRY UNIT
Week 1: Introduction, Imagery, & Sound
M Mar. 5
Discuss Syllabus
Poetry Introduction
POEMS: All poems for today only will be read in-class. Selections from
Mr. W. Shakespeare, Craig Martin Raines “A Martian Writes Home”
IN-CLASS EXERCISE: If E.T. were a Purdue student. . .
W Mar. 7
READINGS: Gregory Orr “Four Temperaments and the Forms of Poetry,” Reread
from your fiction coursepack Richard Hugo “Writing Off the Subject”
POEMS: James Wright, “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine
Island, Minnesota” Mining Images: Matthew Zapruder “The Prelude,” Laura Jensen
“Bad Boats” and “The Red Dog”
IN-CLASS EXERCISE: Imagery Exercise
F Mar. 9
READINGS: Mary Oliver “Sound” and “More Devices of Sound” (pg.19-34)
POEMS: Sound: Kevin Young “Expecting,” Sylvia Plath “Daddy,” Gerard Manley
Hopkins “The Windhover,” Jean Nordaus “He is Running”
Week 2: SPRING BREAK—Mar. 12-16—NO CLASS
Week 3: Senses, Metaphor, & Simile
M Mar. 19
DUE: Poem #1 (emailed to me by no later than noon)
POEMS: Verse for the Senses: Elizabeth Bishop “The Fish” (pg. 95-97 in Oliver), LiYoung Lee “Eating Together” and “Eating Alone,” Feel, Smell: Marie Ponsot
“Separate, In the Swim,” William Carlos Williams “Smell”
W Mar.21
POEMS: Like Life – Simile and Metaphor: Kenneth Koch “To You,” Gerald Stern “I
Remember Galileo,” Charles Simic “The Fork”
F Mar.23
READINGS: Natalie Angier “Abstract Thoughts? The Body Takes Them Literally”
POEMS: Image/Abstraction: Stanley Kunitz “Day of Foreboding,” Richard Siken
“Scheherezade”
Week 4: Voice, Stanza, & Persona
M Mar. 26
DUE: Poem #2 (emailed to me by no later than noon)
READINGS: Mary Oliver “Imitation” (pg. 13-18); “The Line” and “Some Given
Forms” (pg. 35 – 66)
POEMS: couplets: Kevin Young “Ode to the Midwest,” Maurice Manning “A
Blasphemy” tercets: Mark Strand “Eating Poetry,” David Wagoner “For a Student
Sleeping in a Poetry Workshop” quatrains: Marianne Boruch “In the hospital
parking lot” and “He was touched or he touched or”
W Mar.28
READINGS: Mary Oliver “Diction, Tone, Voice” (pg. 76 – 91)
POEMS: Voices of delight and desire: e.e. cummings “since feeling is first,” Tony
Hoagland “History of Desire,” James Tate and “Same Tits,” Jack Gilbert “Portrait
Number Five: Against a New York Summer”
F Mar.30
READINGS: Academy of American Poets “Poetic Technique: Dramatic
Monologue”
POEMS: Personae: Anne Sexton “Her Kind,” John Berryman “Dream Song 1” and
“Dream Song 14,” Adrienne Rich “Phantasia for Elvira Shatayev”
Week 5: Line, Stanza, Form
M Apr. 2
DUE: Poem #3 (emailed to me by no later than noon)
READINGS: On the Sonnet
POEMS: Sonnet: John Donne “Death, Be Not Proud,” Pablo Neruda “Sonnet
XVII,” Henri Cole “Oil & Steel”
Workshop 1_____Dong__________ 2______Eumin_______
W Apr. 4
READINGS: On the Villanelle
POEMS: Villanelle: Elizabeth Bishop “One Art,” Sylvia Plath “Mad Girl’s Love
Song,” Theodore Roethke “The Waking”
Workshop 3____Morgan________ 4_______Valerie______
F Apr.6
READINGS: On the Sestina
POEMS: Sestina: Miller Williams “Shrinking Lonesome Sestina,” John Ashberry
“Farm Implements and Rutabegas in a Landscape”
Workshop 5______Ellie_______ 6______Jennifer________
Week 6: Line, Stanza, Form
M Apr. 9
NO CLASS—MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM Q&A
DUE: Poem #4 (emailed to me by no later than noon)
W Apr.11
READINGS: Greek Myths (I will send you the links)
POEMS: Jack Gilbert “Falling and Flying,” Eavan Boland “The Pomegranate,”
Margaret Atwood “Orpheus (1) and (2)”
Workshop 7____Drew______ 8_____Michelle______
Apr. 13
POEMS: Prose: Carolyn Forche “The Colonel,” Harryette Mullen “Black Nikes,”
Nicole Cooley “Breach” Concrete: May Swenson “Bleeding” and “Women,” Emmet
Williams “Like Attracts Like,” Mary Leader “They Vibrate”
Workshop 9______Joshua Y.____ 10______Emily_______
Week 7: Form & Revision
M Apr.16
DUE: Poem #5 (emailed to me by no later than noon)
DUE: Small Group Poem (emailed to group & me by no later than noon)
Concrete: May Swenson “Bleeding” and “Women,” Emmet Williams “Like Attracts
Like,” Mary Leader “They Vibrate
Workshop 11____Brenda________ 12____Kaley________
W Apr.18
POEMS: *Class’s choice of neglected past poems*
Workshop 13_____Todd________ 14____Calynn_______
F Apr.20
DUE: Small Group Workshop Critiques
(emailed to me in a single document or in the body of an email message by
no later than noon)
Small Group Workshops
Week 8: On Revision
M Apr. 23
POEMS: *Class’s choice of neglected past poems*
Workshop 15___Josh S.________ 16______Pierce______
W Apr. 25
READINGS: Mary Oliver “Revisions” (pg. 109 – 111), Richard Hugo “Nuts and
Bolts” - Coursepack
Workshop 17_____Ross____ 18______Shannon____ 19___Josh N.__
F Apr. 27
NO CLASS—Individual Conferences
POETRY PORTFOLIO DUE (3 revised poems, Poetry cover letter, & course reflection letter)
– Emailed to me by 5 p.m. Sunday, 4/29