HONR 250 THEME I -- POETRY, MUSIC, ART

Our first theme for the class is poetry itself. Later themes will include Wildness, Nature, Family Relations, Community and Nation, War and Political Engagement, The Experience of Love, Luminous Things, The Moment, Identity and Voice, Rage, Grief, Non-Attachment, Epiphany, The Experience of God, Cosmic Vision, Death and the Afterlife. We will cover many of these poems in class, others you will want to read on your own, especially if you choose to write a paper on the theme of poetry about the process of creating poetry, art and music. Note: Sources marked with * are texts you have for the course or www sites you can visit. The sources without an * are on reserve in my office. You can print this information for yourself by clicking on the print icon above. If you would like to suggest further poems for this theme,send me e-mail at mthamert@csbsju.edu.

Source	Poet	Poem	Poetry, Art, Writing
*Hirsch 1	Celan,Paul	(quote)	poem is a message in a bottle
*Hirsch 2	Mandelstam, Osip	(quote)	poem is a message in a bottle
*Hirsch 3	Whitman, Walt	Beginning My Studies	The ecstatic in reading poems
*Hirsch 3	Whitman, Walt	To You	poetry - talking with a stranger passing by - Whitman's affection and need.
*Letters to a Young Poet	Rilke, Rainer Maria	Letters to a Young Poet	Treatise on Poetry Writing in Letter form
*Peacock 126f	Komunyakaa, Yusef	My Father's Loveletters	Child-speaker Father writes to estranged wife through son
*Peacock 128f	Ondaatje, Michael	Letters & Other Worlds	Father writes in drunkenness to be free
*Pinter 99 Poems 36	Dante Alighieri	Sonnet: DA to Guido Cavalcanti	Dante's love of Guido, voyage of poetry uniting community of hearts, we are free and content
*Pinter 99 Poems 56	Khlebnikov, Velimir	We chant and enchant	Poetry and words, practitioner of language Jandl type. Wordsmith.
*Pinter 99 Poems 70	Mallarme, Stephane	A lace curtain self-destructs	poetry itself. Huge influence on later poets like Celan. Nothingness beyond the words.
*Pinter 99 Poems 76	Michelangelo Buonarroti	On the Painting of the Sistine Chapel	causing the disintegration of my body- painting is my shame!
*Rag and Bone 167	Thomas, Dylan	In My Craft or Sullen Art	Like Rilke's Letters.. "I write for the lovers" POETRY IS GRIEF
*Rag and Bone 176	Shakespeare	Sonnet LXV (65)	Fragile beauty vs death, siege of days, Time Decays things. Black Ink!!!
*Rag and Bone 181	Stafford, William	On the Writing of Poetry	Writing each day is like fishing! Finding a process which will continuously bring new things
*Rag and Bone 187	Francis, Robert	Pitcher	metaphor of pitching and batting vs what the poet pitcher wants -- the batter to swing too late!
*Rag and Bone Shop 160	Eskimo	Magic Words	Ur-language of animals becoming human becoming animals. That's the way it was.
*Rag and Bone Shop 162	Orpingalik (Netsilik Eskimo)	Songs Are Thoughts	Songs - when ordinary speech no longer suffices. The words we need will come of themselves
*Rag and Bone Shop 171	Amergin and Cessair Traditional Irish	A&C: A Battle of Poetic Incantation	The Great Battle of The Poet Incantors! Gender difference.
*Rag and Bone Shop 27	Yeats	Mad as the Mist and Snow	Poetry is madness--as mist and snow
* http://wnet.org/foolingwithwords/main_barks.html (click)	Rumi	Where Everything Is Music	Rumi poem on words, poems and ecstasy
* http://thebrothers.com/eraaz/keywest.html (click) -- recommended by D Rothstein	Stevens, Wallace	The Idea of Order at Key West
* http://216.78.129.18/ro02004.htm (click) -- recommended by D Rothstein	Housman, A. E.	Terence, this is stupid stuff
* Last poem on this webpage: http://www.teneta.rinet.ru:8082/1998/transl_stihi/auden_sitnitsky.html recommended by Karen Erickson	Auden, W.H.	Words
The following are poems or resources I have on reserve in my office. Feel free to ask me about them.
Abcarion 7th	Mntahli, Felix	The Stranglehold of English Lit.	What relevance does beautiful Eng. Lit have for Africa? Study of Jane Austen is pernicious!
DiYanni 594 both this poem & painting by Picasso	D'Ambrosio, Vinnie-Marie	If I Were a Maker I'd	If I were a Maker… Fruits create the music, the leaping, the song
DiYanni 574 Norton Teacher Aid	Rilke, Rainer Maria	The Panther	panther as reader of poetry?
DiYanni 585 see painting by Van Gough and Sexton	Fagles, Robert	The Starry Night	madness provides poetry … brushstrokes burning clearer into dawn.
e-mail>HONR 250>COLLINS; hardfile C: (Fr. Mark)	Collins, Billy (Kelly Ryan!!!)	Introduction to Poetry	students' (critics', moralists' ) relation to poetry.
Halpern, Holy Fire	Yeats, W.B.	18 poems in Halpern	I am very religious, poetry is my infallible church
Halpern, Holy Fire	Rilke, Rainer Maria	Ah, Poems amount to so little...	Reflection on when we should write poetry
Halpern, Holy Fire	Rimbaud, Arthur	18 poems in Halpern	Poetic vision through disordering of all the senses.
Halpern, Holy Fire	Rilke, Rainer Maria	Archaic Torso of Apollo	inspiration of art to act now - change your life! See Hirsch p. 6
The Language of Life Cassette 1	Nye, Naomi Shibab	AUDIO several spoken poems	Things: garage, leaf, skunk's eyes
The Language of Life Cassette 1	Sundiata, Sekou	several spoken poems	Celebration of American cultures with urban jazz and funk
The Language of Life Cassette 4	Hass, Robert	AUDIO several spoken poems	poetry is the (Buddhist) movement of breath
The Language of Life Cassette 4	Forche, Carolyn	several spoken poems	amnesty international in central America - "poetry allows the human soul to speak"
The Language of Life Cassette 4	Algeria, Claribel	AUDIO several spoken poems	poetry is like shared bread - exiled from El Salvador
The Language of Life Cassette 7	Harper, Michael S.	several spoken poems	healing cultural divide in America - the black experience
The Language of Life Cassette 7	Cruz, Victor Hernandez	several spoken poems	growing up in a patchwork of Hispanic cultures in NYC Lower East Side
The Language of Life Cassette 7	Rich, Adrienne	several spoken poems	calls on Americans to listen to many voices of poetry for a new sense of America
note for honors office -- creating this table: call up access; arrange theme z-a; filter by selection; ctrl print screen; paste in word; correct spelling; select table; copy; paste in frontpage editor page.

Comments about the information in this table or
if you would like to suggest further poems for this theme:
mthamert@csbsju.edu

Theme I: Poems about Poetry, Art and Music