Reminders and Guidelines
Hi Everyone,
Thanks for a great workshop on Tuesday. We’ll finish up next week, and I hope that you use this day off to write an awesome poem, work on your paper, and maybe even revise something.
For Tuesday, read:
A bunch of reminders:
** You have a poem due TODAY by 5pm
** We are going to be workshopping Jackie and Ermithe on Tuesday. Email me workshop letters if you haven’t already, and bring everything on Tuesday.
**You Fiction Paper is due next Thursday the 19th. You also are doing presentations like we did for the Poetry Paper — 5 minute presentation, telling the class what you wrote about.
**Not showing up, being late, or being unprepared affects your grade. Even if other people are late, even if other people didn’t do the reading (that includes stories for workshop). I don’t grade on a curve, so other people’s slacking won’t save you. Show up having done the work and we can have a lot of fun.
A bunch of guidelines:
Reading Paper (This is due to me with your final portfolio. If you have gone to a reading yet, check out this post from last semester: https://creativewritinghibbert.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/reading-options/ )
Workshop Tuesday
I’m really looking forward to workshopping stories on Tuesday. Here is everything you need to bring:
-Everyone’s stories, with your comments written on them, write down a “Highlight” and a “Single Dominant Impression” for everyone.
-Two workshop letters, see below to see who you’re writing letters for. Be sure to bring me copies of your workshop letters.
Also, we’re going to have individual meetings the 16th-18th, but if anyone wants to meet during my office hours on Tuesday, I’m available, just email me and give me a head’s up.
Email me if you have any questions!
Thanks,
Andra
**WHO WRITES LETTERS FOR WHOM**
Will -writes letter for- Brigid, Ermithe
Brigid– Jackie, Ermithe
Ermithe — Will, Jackie
Jackie — Antonio, Lenford
Lenford — Antonio, Brigid
Antonio — Will, Lenford
Workshop Letter Template:
Stories:
Stories for Tuesday
Read Maile Meloy’s Two-Step and this story by Jonathan Safran Foer for Tuesday and bring in a couple pages of dialogue to work on in class.
Thanks,
Andra
Update for Tuesday 3/27
We are going to launch into our conversation of plot, story and structure more deeply on Tuesday. For that please read Chapter 6 in the Burroway book, “Story.” You also need to read “A Temporary Matter” by Jhumpa Lahiri. You also need to spend some time writing in your journal thinking about the story that’s due on April 5th.
Below is also an updated syllabus for the rest of the term. Take a look and make sure you understand the work that’s upcoming. As always email me with questions, but also know that I’m going away this weekend to a place without the internet and so won’t respond to emails until Sunday.
See you Tuesday!
Andra
For Tuesday, March 20th
Hi Everyone,
I hope that you are all having a lovely spring break. For Tuesday, read the attached story, split into two PDFs. It happens to be one of my favorites. “The Paperhanger” by William Gay. Think about structure/plot, character, and setting.
Please bring in 10 copies of a poem for workshop on Tuesday so that we can start workshoping them on Thursday. I’m having fun reading your poetry papers, and I’ll hand them back on Tuesday, and then you’ll have a week to do revisions on them. You will have two more similar papers due over the course of the semester. Also, you remember that the Gail Mazur is Tuesday at 10 am in the Campus Center.
Your first workshop story will be due April 5th, and should be 4-7 pages long, so you might want to start brainstorming ideas for that in your journal over the next couple days — maybe looking back to the character exercises we did. Email me with questions.
Thanks,
Andra
PS. I’ll hand out a revised syllabus for the rest of the term on Tuesday.
For Thursday
Please do email me the poems/poets that you’ve found that you think you might want to imitate if you haven’t done it already. If you’re having trouble thinking of someone take a look at this: www.howapoemhappens.blogspot.com
Also, for Thursday read the chapter on Setting (ch. 5 in 3rd edition) in the Burroway.
Read the Sherman Alexie poem, “At Navajo Monument Valley Tribal School” and the Appleman “Nobody Dies in the Spring”(Those are both in the book, if they’re not in the 2nd edition, shoot me an email)
Read this poem by Levine:
http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2009/04/philip-levine.html
and these two:
If you have questions or are behind, it’s on you to email me and ask what’s up and how you can catch up.
Thanks,
Andra
For Tuesday, February 21st
I had a lot of fun this morning talking about sentences. I hope that you did, too. Remembering to go through a draft and make sure that each sentence, each word is really pulling its weight will make both your poetry and your fiction SO much stronger and more interesting to read.
**Write a piece of flash fiction like the ones we read in class today. I want it to be between 50 and 300 words. Think about framing a moment of connection or disconnection.
**Read Incarnations of Burned Children by David Foster Wallace (who also wrote “The depressed person” sentence) on p. 180 of the 3rd edition of the textbook.
**Also read Reunion by John Cheever.
**In reading the DFW story, I want you to think about sentence length and tension. Reading Cheever think about the pattern of connection and disconnection between the two main characters and how Cheever shows that to us as readers.
**ALSO! IMPORTANT! Your imitations, imitation presentations, and poetry papers are coming up! (They will be due on March 8th.) Go to poetryfoundation.org and/or poets.org and/or read through the book and find a few different poems you like by different poets. Email me about it by Tuesday night, with links to the poems, and a sentence or two about why you like them.
Have a great weekend, email me if you have any questions!
For Thursday
For Thursday:
Write four to five lines of blank verse, which is unrhymed iambic pentameter, if you have questions send me an email. If you missed class today, print out the Frost poem and write in the stresses on the first stanza. If you’re confused by what I’ve said so far, look at Appendix A and get as far as you can.
Read the Nick Lantz poem and write comments on it thinking about the list of things below, as though Nick were a student in the class. Then read your peers’ poems and write similar comments.
If you didn’t hand out poems today, either because you were absent or there was a printer-apocalyse, be sure to bring in copies on Thursday.
Let me know if there are any questions,
Thanks,
Andra
Things to consider writing comments for peers:
** Start with a description of the poem, write a sentence or two describing it.
** The poem’s beginning. What did the opening do for you? What did it promise? Did the poet follow through on that promise?
** Form. What is the structure and form? Does it add to the subject?
** Point of View. Can you define it? Is it consistently employed throughout the poem, or does it wobble and shift?
** Detail, Imagery, Setting. Are the details sharp? Are the senses employed? Are the details and images necessary to the intent? Is there anything extraneous? Or not adequately developed? How does place benefit or detract from this poem? Please be very specific!
** Language, Style. Often it is the poet’s language that makes a poem seem rushed or predictable, melodramatic or self-indulgent. Where is the writer’s voice at its most believable? Where does it sound like the voice of a living, breathing person? Give a specific example or two. Where has the writer fallen into overwriting, generality, abstraction, cliché?
** Does the poem seem summarized rather than alive on the page? Where could the writer slow down? Does the progression of the poem make sense to you? Why or why not?
** Does the ending both surprise you and seem inevitable?
Tuesday’s Reading
On Tuesday we’re going to spend some time workshopping your poems and we’re also going to talk about iambic pentameter. You’re going to write some.
We’re going to rock it.
-Andra
As a reminder, please bring in 11 copies of the revision of your poem.
Also read:
Burroway, “Poetry,” p. 294-319, also look at Appendix A – I’m not sure what the corresponding pages are in the 2nd edition, but if you’re unsure of what to read, shoot me an email.
Please print these poems, but you don’t have to read them before class:
Nick Lantz’s “Of the Parrat and other birds that can Speake”
Stopping by Woods on A Snowy Evening
Reading for Tuesday
For Tuesday all there is to do (assuming you’ve sent me your writing assignment from last week) is read:
Burroway, “Voice,” p. 47-61
Werewolf – Angela Carter (Burroway, p. 154-155)
Kincaid_Girl
Herbert White by Frank Bidart : The Poetry Foundation
While you’re reading keep everything we discussed last week about image and details, but also start to think about voice as Burroway describes it in the textbook chapters. Email me or comment if you have questions.
Creative Writing -- Spring 2012 -- E210 