Monday,
January 31
Day 1

• Rilke's "Ah, poems amount to so little..." www link: http://www.mtsu.edu/~dlavery/rmrquot.htm
(about halfway down the webpage, right column.)

• Browse through all your books to get an overview of the readings we will be doing.

• Pick out three thoughts or phrases in Rilke's Letters which seem important or beautiful or otherwise meaningful to you.

• Entry 1  Write a commentary including the quotes you select, telling the class why you find the idea important. Put a title on your short essay and make sure you have quoted the text at least three times within your entry. Please always cite the text after the quotation -- like this -- (Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, p. 123).

• Read the 8 poems on the theme of Poetry, Art and Music in the Rag and Bone anthology.    Re-read them several times and see if any of them seem to fit together. Annotate them as thoroughly as you can in the time you have.  You can check which poems they are here.

• Entry 2   In the first half of your E-mail entry quote the text of Peacock's Chapters 1 & 2. twice.  1/2 screen of your reflections is enough.

• In the second half of the screen, ponder the 8 poems in Rag and Bone.     Choose 2 quotations from the two poems you like best or which strike you in some important way and tell us why.  You may also wish to comment on another poem or two with a quote or two if you feel inspired to do so.  Short commentaries are fine.

1. Letters to a Young Poet (Classic Wisdom Collection) by Rainer Maria Rilke (April 1992) New World Library; ISBN: 0931432944
         A mentor of mine first introduced me to this little collection of letters by Rainer Maria Rilke when I was a junior in college, and it has been one of those books that I have read and re-read throughout my life, each time with a different kind of understanding.  Born in Prague, and having lived in Austria, Russia, Germany, France, and Switzerland, Rilke is said to be the greatest European poet of the 20th century. I think you will discover why in the reading of this book.

Theme 1:  Poems about Poetry and Creatvity

Friday,
February 4

• Discussion of "Sonnet: Dante Allighieri to Guido Cavalcanti."

• Discussion of Michelangelo's "On the Painting of the Sistine Chapel.

• Read Chapter 1 of Edward Hirsch's How to Read a Poem.  This is a first-time reading with no written assignment.  For Next Monday you will be asked to re-read the chapter and write an entry on it.

• Feel free to read further poems from the theme on poetry, especially if you would like to focus some future essay on this topic. Theme of Poetry

Writing For Monday, February 14 ...

(3 separate entries please...)

• Entry 5  Write an Entry on the Hirsch chapter, using as a subject line...
Hirsch, Chapter 1 //  (a catchy title)

• Entry 6  Write a second entry on the one poem listed below which gave you the most pleasure.  In your entry,  see if you can come up with some unexpected statements about the poem's possible meanings, but quote the text to support yourself.    Do you want to do a little research on the author?   Talk about conflicting images in the poem?  Analyze the speaker?  Comment on the sounds of the words -- or a single word  in the poem which has the most power for you?  Use this as your subject line...
(Poet's Name, e.g., Martial)  // (Catchy Title)

• Continue reading and revising your own poem on some aspect Poetry and Creativity.  When you are ready, submit your poem -- it's still a draft -- by e-mail.  For now your poems will be posted.  We will talk about the idea of an on-line poetry magazine for those who would like to explore that kind of project.
Try this subject line format ...
My Poem on Poetry // (Title of Your Poem)

Theme 2:   Poems about Human Wildness

World
|
Poems by Other Poets
  (Intertexuality)
|
                  The Poet's Life                    |                                                          
& Her Other Poems                      |                                                        
Poet   ____________ | _________   Reader
                                                                         |                                             (community of   readers)
|
|
Language Itself
|
The Work Itself
The Implied Poet
The Implied Reader

Writing for Wednesday:
• Entry 7  Do an entry on any ONE of the poems to be read for today.    This time, quote the poem line by line (or perhaps two lines at a time).   After quoting each line, record your response and reflections to that line and its words, its surprising images, its shift from what was presented above,   the new questions you have in your mind before you read on.   In the end you will have quoted and reflected on each line by itself -- or if it makes better sense, two lines together).  Use the chart above to increase your flexibility in how you approach interpretation.   Do you want to relate an image with something in the Poet's actual life? Do you want to pose questions about the World-- the historical, intellectual, poetic movements and debates at the time when this poem was written?   Do you want to comment on how an image struck yoou as a Reader -- what memories the image stimulated in you -- whether the poem or image is valuable to yo uor the community in which you live today?  Like Sersch and the albatross, can you relate an image to the same image's appearance in another poem or literary work (Intertexuality)?   Do you want to comment on intrinsic questions about the Poem Itself and the poem's use of speaker, implied poet, implied reader, shift of tone?  Some of the questions above may involve a bit of research in the library or on the web (a tidbit on the author's life or intellectual interests as it relates to this poem).  But you do not have to direct yourself to these extrinsic interests.  In many ways, the intrinsic aspects of the poem and its meanings may be  more important to you.

7.  (Poet's Name) // (A Title that Teases Your Reader and Makes Her Want to Read On)

The purpose of this assignment is to gain flexibility in what we think and write about in conversing with a poem and to enhance our skills at close line-by-line reading.  Give it a try!

Lucille Clifton b. 1936

there is a girl inside
she is randy as a wolf.
she will not walk away
and leave these bones
to an old woman.
she is a green tree
in a forest of kindling.
she is a green girl
in a used poet.
she has waited
patient as a nun
for the second coming,
when she can break through gray hairs
into blossom
and her lovers will harvest
honey and thyme
and the woods will be wild
with the damn wonder of it.

From the Beginning of My Life
by Jalalludin Rumi

From the beginning of my life
I have been looking for your face.
But today, I have seen it.
Today I have seen the charm,
the beauty, the unfathomable grace
of the face that I was looking for.
Today I have found you.
And those who laughed
and scorned me yesterday
are sorry that they were not looking as I did.
I am bewildered by the magnificence of your beauty
and wish to see you with a hundred eyes.
My heart has burned with passion
and has searched forever
for this wondrous beauty
that I now behold.
I am ashamed to call this love human
and afraid of God to call it divine.
Your fragrant breath,
like the morning breeze,
has come to the stillness of the garden.
You have breathed new life into me.
I have become your sunshine and also your shadow.
My soul is screaming in ecstasy.
Every fiber of my being is in love with you.
Your effulgence has lit a fire in my heart
and you have made radiant for me
the earth and the sky.
My arrow of love has arrived at the target.
I am in the house of mercy
and my heart is a place of prayer.
 

Die in This Love
by Jalalludin Rumi

Die, die, die in this love.
If you die in this love your soul will be renewed.
Die, die, don’t fear the death of that which is known.
If you die to the temporal you will become timeless.
Die, die, cut off those chains
that hold you prisoner to the world of attachment.
Die, die, die to the deathless and you will be eternal.
Die, die, come out of this cloud.
When you leave the cloud,
you will be the effulgent moon
Die, die, die to the din and noise of mundane concerns.
In the silence of love you will find the spark of life.

    3. Also write an entry on one of the poems by either Clifton or Rumi above dealing with human wildness. (Entry 8) You may try a reader-response approach, taking a line or two at a time and recording your experience, your questions, your assocaitions and the way you can or cannot identify with the poem. Or you may wish to do some research into the author's life to shed some light on what you are reading.

Thursday,
February 24

Poems about Family Relations

Reading For Thursday:

__ Read Chapter Ten in Molly Peacock's How to Read a Poem... and Start a Poetry Circle, pp. 126-148.  Carefully annotate and ponder the poems on fathers and writing by Yusef Komunyakaa and Michael Ondaatje, reading each poem several times and being aware of how your understanding subtly shifts each time you read it.

__ Write an entry on one of the poems in Peacock's Chapter Ten -- either

9.  (Komunyakaa or Ondaatje) // (Title to Pull In Your Reader)

__ Write an entry  describing all the things Peacock chooses to talk about in responding to the poem.  Later in your entry, reflect on how you personally can expand the way you respond to a poem by Peacock's example.

Poems on the Theme of Family Relationships

Monday, February 28
3

Our Next Project:

__ two poems from our Rag and Bone anthology --  Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz,"  p. 130; and Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays,"  p.  141.

__Please purchase the Vintage Anthology from the bookstore and choose a poet you would like to work on.  In class you will set up a time to meet with your small group to narrow your choice to one poet by Wednesday.

__ Write an entry on either Roethke's or Hayden's poem.  Please use the number 12 to start your subject line for easier reference, like this:

11. (Roethke or Hayden) // (Your Outrageous Title)

__ Time permitting, do some browsing on the web or in the library for images and biographical information on either Sandra McPherson or Linda McCarriston. 

12.  (McPherson or McCarriston) // (A Title for Your Entry Which Helps Tease Us into Reading What You Have to Say)

March Assignments
click here

u can see from the syllabus above, we will go through poems in a thematic way in order to facilitate class discussion about how these poems ask us to examine our own lives and perhaps live differently in the world.  

Class Activities.  The following are the main activities for our Great Poets class, although there will be some flexibility in shifting emphases so that  activities remain meaningful and dynamic.   

Annotations.  Through frequent annotations of poems you read, you will begin to see how a poem can "grow on you," take on different shapes and meanings according to the events of your life, a deeper understanding of the variety of poetic perspectives within a single theme, knowledge about the poet's life and intellectual debates of his time.  You will be asked to bring in your annotated texts (e.g., A Book of Luminous Things) occasionally so that we can discuss your insights and possible future directions of your annotations.   10%

Journaling Before Class.  Many of you have written your reflections on course readings before class through journaling by E-mail  You will be able to read each others' reflections frequently on the works we cover by going to a special webpage --    http://employees.csbsju.edu/mthamert/honr_250_journaling_before_class.htm. -- or to the public folders for honors courses.  On the webpage you will also find information on how to create and post your entries.  Normally you will write a one-screen entry before each class, due before you go to bed the evening before class so that they can be posted for other class members to read before 11:20.  Occasionally you will be asked to respond to others' entries.   30%

In-Class Discussions.  Your thoughtful preparations ahead of time and volunteering  in class will provide for the most meaningful debates and group discoveries.  Often our most important ideas will come about through members' interactions and careful refinement of your perspectives and convictions.  Try to balance the clarity of your convictions with an intellectual flexibility which allows you to say, "Ï think I am going to change my mind on that issue!"  Attendance is important for the vitality of group interaction; more than two unexcused absences will affect your final grade for the course.  10%

Paper on a Poet.  At midterm you will be asked to write a five-page paper on a poet who has struck you as important or especially meaningful to you.   You will need to cite at least ten of your favorite poems by this poet, at least half of them poems we have not covered in class.  The purpose of this paper is to give you some depth in understanding a single poet and to provide you with a springboard for further research and reading on the poet later in life. 15%

Paper on a Theme.  At the end of the term you will be able to look over the themes we have covered -- Poetry, Wildness, Nature, Family Relations, Community and Nation, War and Political Engagement, The Experience of Love, Things, The Moment, Identity and Voice, Rage, Grief,  Non-Attachment, Epiphany, The Experience of God, Cosmic Vision, Death and the Afterlife.  In this Essay, you will be able to explore a particular theme in more depth, relating the poets'messgaes to each other and coming up with a thesis and concusions of your own. 15%

Poems By Heart.  Molly Peacock says that she has about a dozen poems which serve as her talismans for life. These poems have a complex existence within her, shedding light on the most perplexing aspects of the human condition.  Through learning several poems by heart, each from a different theme, you will begin to choose such talismans for your own life, poems which you can take with you and ponder for years to come.  10%