English 363
TuTh 12:30pm
Spring 2015
Professor Nadia Nurhussein
E-mail: Nadia.Nurhussein@umb.edu
Office Hours: TuTh 3:30-5pm, W-06-028
MODERN AMERICAN POETRY
Course Description:
In this course, we will read verse and essays by and about American poets of the first two-thirds of
the twentieth century. Our starting point will be the years immediately preceding the emergence of
“High Modernism,” when Imagism became “Amygism” (Ezra Pound’s disparaging name for a
school he helped found but thought later was debased by Amy Lowell’s influence). The poetries of
interconnected modernisms are often considered as distinct literary movements—the Harlem
Renaissance poetry of Langston Hughes, the experimental compositions by Gertrude Stein, the
American strain represented by William Carlos Williams—but, contextualizing them historically, we
will attempt to uncover the affiliations between them and develop a nuanced account of the
landscape of American poetry in the early to mid-twentieth century. We will end the course with
some of the products of the 1950s and 1960s, including the New York School and Confessional
poetry. Students will be required to write three essays (two short, one long) and to deliver an oral
presentation.
Required and Recommended Texts:
Books to purchase:
The New Anthology of American Poetry (Modernisms: 1900-1950). Ed. Stephen Gould Axelrod,
Camille Roman, and Thomas Travisano.
The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry. Ed. J. D. McClatchy.
Additional required reading:
Selected poetry and essays (most available on the class wiki)
Cary Nelson’s website, “Modern American Poetry,” provides important supplementary
reading for this course. Find it at <http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets.htm>
Writing Assignments:
You will have three formal writing assignments (in addition to several informal exercises and
responses, in and out of class): two 3- to 4-page essays, each addressing one or two poems, and one
8- to 10-page final essay addressing the work of two poets covered during the second half of the
semester. Late papers will be marked down 1/3 of a grade for each class day (an A will become an
A- if turned in on Thursday instead of Tuesday, etc). All texts cited in your formal writing
assignments should be cited using MLA format. Guidelines can be found on the following website:
<http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/>
Your response papers should be exploratory and informal. I do not expect polished arguments, but I
don’t want careless notes either. The purpose of the response paper is to help you articulate and
organize your own insights about the reading. I expect these papers to fuel your discussions,
whether on a voluntary or involuntary basis. These assignments will not be graded, but excellent
work (as well as poor work) will be acknowledged. No late response papers will be accepted.
1
Plagiarism is defined by UMass Boston’s Code of Student Conduct:
<http://www.umb.edu/pages/standard_page/19536>
An act of academic dishonesty, plagiarism can include actions such as presenting another writer’s
work as your own work; copying passages from print or internet sources without proper citation;
taking ideas off the internet, modifying them, and presenting them as your own; or submitting the
same work for more than one course. If you plagiarize, you will fail this course. Plagiarism cases will
be referred to the Chair of the English Department. Also note that plagiarism can result in further
academic sanctions such as suspension.
Presentations:
Each student will be expected to give one presentation. The presentation should be ten to fifteen
minutes long and should consist in observations about and analysis of a poem that has been
assigned for that day. Your presentation should also introduce questions or problems raised by the
poem for class discussion. The guidelines regarding plagiarism also apply to your presentation.
Participation:
Class should be driven by your discussion. Everyone is expected to contribute. You should come to
class having read the text(s) carefully.
Attendance:
Attendance is mandatory. Each unexcused absence in excess of three will result in a percentage
point being taken off of your course grade. If you must miss class for a good reason, let me know
ahead of time and bring documentation afterward. If you are absent six or more times for any reason,
you will fail the course.
Grading:
Informal writing
Presentation
Class participation
Essays:
10%
10%
10%
Essay #1 (3-4 pages) 20%
Essay #2 (3-4 pages) 20%
Essay #3 (8-10 pages) 30%
If you have a disability and feel that you will need accommodations in order to complete course
requirements, please contact the Ross Center for Disability Services (Campus Center UL211).
*PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONE BEFORE COMING TO CLASS!*
2
CALENDAR OF READINGS (subject to revision):
January
27
Tu
I. REGIONALISM:
29
Th
February
3
Tu
Introduction to the course
To be distributed: Paul Laurence Dunbar, “An Ante-bellum Sermon,”
“We Wear the Mask,” “Dinah Kneading Dough,” “The
Haunted Oak,” “The Poet”
Robert Frost, “Mending Wall,” “Desert Places,” “Design,”
“Directive”
Willa Cather, “Prairie Spring”
Carl Sandburg, “Chicago”
II. IMAGISM AND VORTICISM:
5
Th
HD, “Oread,” “Sea Rose,” “Helen”
Amy Lowell, “Aubade,” “The Captured Goddess,” “The Taxi,” “The
Letter,” “A Decade,” “Bath,” “From Guns as Keys: And the
Great Gate Swings,” “The Weathervane Points South,” “Vernal
Equinox,” “September, 1918,” “Dissonance,” “In Time of
War,” Preface from Some Imagist Poets
10
Tu
Ezra Pound, “In the Station of the Metro,” “A Pact,” excerpt from
“Hugh Selwyn Mauberley,” “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A
Letter,” excerpt from “A Retrospect”
Online: Pound, “Vortex”
<http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/pound/blast.htm>
III. “HIGH MODERNISM”:
12
Th
T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Tradition and
the Individual Talent”
Online: Eliot, “Hamlet and his Problems”
<http://www.bartleby.com/200/sw9.html>
Response Paper #1 Due
17
Tu
Eliot, The Waste Land
19
Th
Pound, Cantos I, XIII, XLV, selection from LXXXI, CXVI, CXX
IV. A LAWYER AND A DOCTOR:
24
Tu
Wallace Stevens, “Sunday Morning,” “Disillusionment of Ten
O’Clock,” “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,”
“Anecdote of the Jar,” “The Snow Man,” “A High-Toned
Old Christian Woman,” “The Emperor of Ice-Cream,” “The
Idea of Order at Key West,” “Of Modern Poetry,” “Of Mere
Being”
3
26
Th
Stevens, “Sea Surface Full of Clouds,” “The Man on the Dump,”
“The Motive for Metaphor,” “The Plain Sense of Things”
(wiki)
ESSAY #1 DUE (3-4 pages)
3
Tu
William Carlos Williams, “Portrait of a Lady,” “Queen-Anne’s-Lace,”
“The Great Figure,” “Spring and All,” “To Elsie,” “The
Dance,” “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”
5
Th
Williams, “This is Just to Say,” “The Red Wheelbarrow,” and
selections from Paterson
Online: Kenneth Koch, “Variations on a Theme by William Carlos
Williams”
March
<http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/variations.html>
Online: Ed Dorn, parody of Williams’s “This Is Just to Say”
<http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/dorn-plums-parody.html>
V. IMMIGRANTS AND SECOND-GENERATION AMERICANS:
10
Tu
Angel Island poetry (537-539)
Online: Some information about Angel Island
<http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/angel/angel.htm>
Lola Ridge, “The Fifth Floor Window,” “Phyllis,” “Morning Ride,”
“Stone Face”
Response Paper #2 Due
12
Th
*March 15-22
Gertrude Stein, “Susie Asado,” “Preciosilla,” selections from Tender
Buttons and “Composition as Explanation”
Louis Zukofsky, “Mantis,” “‘A’-11,” “I’s (pronounced eyes)”
SPRING VACATION*
VI. THE “HARLEM RENAISSANCE” POETS AND THEIR DESCENDENTS:
24
Tu
Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “The Weary
Blues,” “Christ in Alabama,” “Come to the Waldorf Astoria,”
“The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”
26
Th
Hughes, “The Cat and the Saxophone (2AM),” “Jazz Band in a
Parisian Cabaret,” “Bad Man,” “The South,” “Beale Street
Love,” “Brass Spittoons,” “Red Silk Stockings,” “Mother to
Son,” “I, Too,” “Scottsboro,” “Good Morning Revolution!,”
“Open Letter to the South,” “Jim Crow’s Last Stand,” “OneWay Ticket” (wiki)
ESSAY #2 DUE (3-4 pages)
31
Tu
Jean Toomer, “Skyline,” “Reapers,” “November Cotton Flower,”
“Georgia Dusk,” “Portrait in Georgia,” “Seventh Street,”
“Her Lips Are Copper Wire”
Angelina Weld Grimke, “The Black Finger,” “Dawn,” “Dusk,”
4
“Tenebris,” “Grass Fingers,” “A Mona Lisa,” “Fragment”
James Weldon Johnson, Prefaces to The Book of American Negro Poetry
(wiki)
April
2
Th
Claude McKay, “The Harlem Dancer,” “If We Must Die,” “The
Tropics in New York,” “America,” “Harlem Shadows”
Sterling Brown, “When de Saints Go Ma’chin’ Home,” “Strong
Men,” “Slim Greer,” “Slim Lands a Job?,” “Ma Rainey”
James Weldon Johnson, “The Creation,” “Noah Built the Ark” (wiki)
Brown, “Our Literary Audience” (wiki)
7
Tu
Melvin Tolson, selections from Dark Symphony and Harlem Gallery
Gwendolyn Brooks, “The Mother,” “Sadie and Maud,” “Negro
Hero,” “Beverly Hills, Chicago,” “Of Robert Frost,”
“Langston Hughes” (wiki)
9
Th
Robert Hayden, “Middle Passage” (VBCAP)
Hayden, “Runagate, Runagate” (wiki)
Brooks, “The Bean Eaters,” “We Real Cool,” “A Bronzeville
Mother…,” “The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett
Till,” “The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock,” “The
Lovers of the Poor” (wiki)
VII. THE “CONFESSIONAL” POETS:
14
Tu
John Berryman, selections from The Dream Songs (VBCAP)
Sylvia Plath, “Daddy,” “Ariel,” “Lady Lazarus” (VBCAP)
Response Paper #3 Due
16
Th
Robert Lowell, “Memories of West Street and Lepke,” “Skunk
Hour,” “The Mouth of the Hudson,” “For the Union Dead”
(VBCAP)
21
Tu
Elizabeth Bishop, “The Bight,” “Over 2000 Illustrations…,” “At the
Fishhouses,” “The Shampoo,” “Under the Window: Ouro
Preto,” “The Filling Station,” “In the Waiting Room,” “One
Art,” “Poem” (VBCAP)
23
Th
Bishop, “Crusoe in England,” “12 O’Clock News,” “Arrival at
Santos,” “The Man-Moth,” “The Map,” “The Moose,” “The
Fish” (wiki)
VIII. THE BEAT POET AND THE BLACK MOUNTAIN POET:
28
Tu
Allen Ginsberg, excerpt from Howl (VBCAP)
Online: Listen to Ginsberg reading “Howl” (Part II)
<http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=1550>
Online: Ginsberg, “America”
<http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/america.html>
5
Charles Olson, “The Kingfishers” (VBCAP)
Online: Olson, “Projective Verse”
<http://writing.upenn.edu/~taransky/Projective_Verse.pdf>
IX. THE “NEW YORK SCHOOL” POETS:
30
Th
Frank O’Hara, “Why I Am Not a Painter,” “Meditations in an
Emergency,” “The Day Lady Died,” “Having a Coke with
You,” “Ave Maria” (VBCAP)
May
5
Tu
Poetry Reading with Adrian Matejka (Location TBA)
7
Th
O’Hara, “Personism: A Manifesto,” “A True Account of Talking to
the Sun at Fire Island,” “Poem (Khrushchev is coming on the
right day!),” “You are Gorgeous and I’m Coming,” “Getting
up Ahead of Someone (Sun)” (wiki)
12
Tu
John Ashbery, “Soonest Mended” (VBCAP)
Ashbery, “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror,” “The Instruction
Manual,” “Farm Implements…,” “Forties Flick,” “Paradoxes
and Oxymorons” (wiki)
“What’s American about American Form?”
<http://www.fenceportal.org/?page_id=687>
ESSAY #3 DUE (8-10 pages)
6