POETRY & PUBLIC SPACE
English 61
Pitzer College, Fall 2009
Please Note: This Syllabus is Subject to Change
Wednesdays 2:45 – 5:30
Bernard 207
Professor Brent Armendinger
Office: Avery 206
Office Hours: TBA
(909) -607-3489
brent_armendinger@pitzer.edu
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.
—William Carlos Williams, “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower”
Given the bleak vulnerability of the world and of our own country’s dogmatic
commitment to violence, what can either poet or poetry do? For one thing, insist on
feeling - insist on witness - insist on being here, in this ‘phenomenal world,’ as D.H.
Lawrence called it, ‘which is raging and yet apart.’
—Robert Creeley
Course Description:
This course is a site-specific collaboration in finding/making poetry outside the walls of the
classroom. Half of our work will be in the local community – in parks, on public transit, at
the farmer’s market, and in neighborhoods. We will write in public, set up collaborative
poetry stations, and reflect on our experiences through poetry. Our readings will explore the
relationship between poetry, documentary, activism, and the boundaries between public and
private space.
Course Objectives:
It is my hope that through this course, you will:
a) discover new potential for your own work as poets through acts of collaboration in
public space
b) make links between the readings and hands-on work in the community
c) create writing exercises and gain confidence as facilitators of collaborations
d) exercise your analytical skills by writing an essay on the connections between your
experiments and the complex personal, social, and political issues in the local
community
Course Work
• Class Participation
You are part of creating a new class at Pitzer College. This class is an experiment, which
requires that you take risks and participate wholeheartedly. My hope is that you will engage
deeply in the readings and community exercises, speak up and be sensitive to others who
want to speak. It is more crucial for you to come to class with the intention to explore what
puzzles you than to prove how much you already know. Needless to say, being in class and
being on time are an essential part of making this work for everybody.
In pairs, you will each facilitate one class discussion of the readings. Please focus on specific
passages from the text, and come with a list of questions to engage the rest of us in a lively
discussion. Please also make connections between the readings and our experiments in
public space.
Note: There are three outside events required for this class:
Friday, September 18: PARK(ing) Day in Los Angeles – class field trip
Saturday, October 10: Pomona Art Walk
TBD: Poem-Booth Project
• Poem-Booth Project
A poem in a phone booth bears witness to disappearing modes of communication, and
proposes an alternative way that we might speak with each other. We will turn an old
telephone booth into a “poem-booth,” set it up in a public space in downtown Pomona, and
invite passersby to listen and contribute to a collaborative poem. We will also create and
offer small maps to nearby payphones, and encourage participants to record a line of poetry
on our toll-free hotline (1-877-eat-poem). We will meet first as a whole group to introduce
the poem-booth at the Saturday Art Walk in Pomona. After that, we will divide up the
responsibilities of maintaining the booth: creating payphone maps/exercises, updating the
hotline, making a sound collage of the responses, and sitting near the booth to invite
participation.
• Site-Specific Poetry Exercises
At the beginning of the semester, you will decide on a site outside of Claremont that you
would like to explore on a deeper level through the creation of a long poem. I will give you
weekly prompts to help you incorporate different modes of attention into your poem.
During our class meetings, we will devote time to “workshop” your poems. Essential to this
practice is the belief that each of your experiments, however incomplete, has something to
offer. We will practice listening to the writing on its own terms, and offer constructive
comments to help it grow in its own direction.
For the midterm, hand in 8 pages, single-spaced, of your site-specific poem in progress.
Also include a 5 page reflection paper, double-spaced, indicating how your poem has been
influenced by the site itself, one of the poets we have read in class and another student’s
work, citing specific passages by these writers and yourself. Indicate your personal goals for
your poem, the threads which connect it, and how you would like to see it grow in the
future.
• Poetic Intervention
Use language from your ongoing site-specific poem to create a “poetic intervention” in the
space that you have written from all semester. The rationale here is one of reciprocity – I’m
asking you to leave behind something impermanent that will be accessible to the people who
move through that space. We will discuss this in class, and you can get some great ideas
from the work of Cecilia Vicuña and Philip Metres’ essay, “Lang/Scapes.” You should
document your intervention with photographs, and include a 7-10 page double-spaced
reflection paper. Your reflection should discuss the history and contemporary use of the
site, as well as the implications of your choices in language and visual presentation on this
space and the people who use it. You should refer to at least one outside source and a poet
we have read in this class. Make sure to document your sources using MLA format.
Grading
Fear of mistakes kills thinking and creativity. While I will be assigning letter grades to your
work, I put much more investment in my written comments. I begin by asking what new
thoughts and questions your work arises in me. I take into account your own goals, the
extent to which you challenge yourself, and how you improve over the course of the
semester. Here is a general breakdown of the way I will be grading your work:
•
•
•
•
Class Participation: 25%
Poem-Booth Project: 20%
Site-Specific Poem: 30%
Poetic Intervention: 25%
Absence Policy
Everyone has one free absence. Beyond this, absence and lateness will affect your class
participation grade. If you know ahead of time that you won’t be able to make it to class,
you can propose an extra credit project.
A Note about Email
I am committed to being available to you outside of class, and it is best to do this during my
office hours or by making an appointment. You are welcome to ask me any questions via
email, but please understand if it takes me a couple of days to respond. As a writer, I find it
important to make a clearing between myself and the internet. Feel free to try this yourself.
And, last but not least, I will not accept any written assignments over email.
Required Texts
The following books are available at Huntley Bookstore and on reserve at the library:
Sesshu Foster, City Terrace: Field Manual
Brenda Hillman, Practical Water
Juliana Spahr, This Connection of Everyone with Lungs
C.D. Wright, One Big Self
C.S. Giscombe, Giscome Road
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictee
All other readings on Sakai
Course Schedule
W 9/2
Introduction
W 9/9
Gaston Bachelard, from The Poetics of Space (S)
Philip Metres, “From Reznikoff to Public Enemy” (S)
W 9/16
Sesshu Foster, City Terrace: Field Manual
Rebar, “PARK(ing) Day Manifesto/Manual” (S)
Site-specific poem version 1 due
F 9/18
PARK(ing) Day (required field trip to LA)
W 9/23
Payphone Mapping in Pomona
Yi-Fu Tuan, from Space and Place (S)
W 9/30
Brenda Hillman, Practical Water
Denise Levertov, “Great Possessions,” “The Poet in the World” (S)
Site-specific poem version 2 due
W 10/7
Class Visit & Poetry Reading: Brenda Hillman
SAT 10/10
Poem-Booth at Saturday Art Walk (required field trip to Pomona)
W 10/14
Juliana Spahr, This Connection of Everyone with Lungs
Judith Butler, “Violence, Mourning, Politics” (S)
Site-specific poem version 3 due
W 10/21
C.D. Wright, One Big Self
Adrienne Rich, “The Hermit’s Scream,” “A Leak in History” (S)
W 10/28
Site-specific poem: midterm due
Philip Metres, “Lang/Scapes” (S)
Discussion of “Poetic Intervention”
W 11/4
Cecilia Vicuña, excerpts from Quipoem (S)
Kenneth Sherwood, “Sound Written and Sound Breathing” (S)
Text & Image in Public Art: Discussion with Bill Anthes
Site-specific poem version 4 due
W 11/11
Claudia Rankine, The Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue (in class)
W 11/18
C.S. Giscombe, Giscome Road
Site-specific poem version 5 due
W 11/25
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictee
Juliana Spahr, “Tertium Quid Neither One Thing Nor the Other”
W 12/2
“Poetic Intervention” workshop
W 12/9
Last Day of Class
Poetic Intervention due