hallawayjoe

:: HOME :: GET EMAIL UPDATES :: EMAIL ::

hallawayjoe
Andyland

2004-05-14 8:48 PM
Garcia Ann/Sla

Previous Entry :: Next Entry

Read/Post Comments (0)

Student Project Period Learning Analysis

Andrew Hall

Richard Garcia

Winter/Spring Term YEAR:__2004____________

1. Student Learning Analysis of Project Period:
A. This period I produced 18 poems and more that are in progress, and a short 5 page paper.
B. My objectives including developing my voice and engaging poetic forms. Specifically I was asked to do some sonnets and sestinas and a few modular forms.
C. I believe I put out a good effort in attempting to write in forms, but I am certain that I have more to learn and explore in formal poetics. I believe I need to internalize forms, much as a non-native speaker needs to intensively learn English. However, this might be a long term task, and I can take satisfaction in knowing I am headed in the right direction.

2. Annotated Bibliography from Project Period:
Make a separate document, listing all works read during the Project Period briefly summarizing each bibliographic entry. Do not staple the bibliography to the Student Learning Analysis. The bibliographic pages are not included in the three page limit of the SLA.

3. Field Study/Internships (if applicable):

I have begun a field study with the evaluation of Bruce Isaacson to explore the usefulness of the poet in the community and this involves a spoken word/poetry tour I am conducting with 2 fellow poets, and producing a CD, and as part of my research for the Critical Paper investigating the cultures of performance and literary poetry.

4. Be sure to sign and date the Analysis.

To receive credit for the semester, the original signed and dated copy of this Analysis, along with your annotated bibliography, must reach your mentor through the mail by Friday, May 21st, 2003, the last day of the Project Period.

Annotated Bibliography Spring 2004
Andrew Hall

Ed Ali, Agha Shahid. Ravishing Disunities:Real Ghazals in English Hanover, N.H.:University Press of New England, 2000.
Alli's anthology first points out the history of the ghazal and the misrepresentation of it in American poetry , and then demonstrates the true form in this collection of poems. It's repetition and rhyme neglected by free-verse poets and well meaning formalists, the ghazal here rings true to it's origins.
There are a few variations that break the rules, but at least conceptually adhere to the form.

Bishop, Elizabeth. The Complete Poems: 1927-1979. New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux. 1983.

Bishop's use of descriptive detail and her mastery of form was no secret to me as evidenced in poems like "The Fish" and "One Art", but reading her collection, I come across an occasional foray into humor in poems like her early "Lullaby for the Cat" and later poem "Lines Written in The Fannie Farmer Cookbook," Bishop definitely had a playful side and as a poet who admires a funny poem, especially a well written one, this book has some hidden delights.

Eds. Brown, Kurt and Laure-Ann Bosselaar Night Out: Poems About Hotels, Motels, Restaurants and Bars. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 1997.

I live in Las Vegas, a town filled with all four of the places this book of poems focuses on. This book was very liberating, because it gives me permission to investigate these places in my own backyard. Before, I kind of thought that writing about bars would be construed as being imitative of Bukowski, not that there is anything wrong with that, but I can pursue these places with various literary motifs in mind.

Celan, Paul Selected Poems and Prose. Trans. John Felstiner. New York: Norton, 2001.

Celan has a penchant for a serious political statements mixed with the surreal. His poems tend to be short, strong lyrical meditations, some following a rhyme scheme like "Ice Eden" (abab) (p. 155) and others not using any rhyme scheme such as "Just Think" (p. 307), although repeating the phrase at the beginning of each stanza. Celan also deconstructs words to the bare bones of the language. Sound. In one of the sections of "Breathturn", he muses: Your question---your answer./your song, what does it know?//Deepinsnow./Eepinnow./E--i--o./ (p. 251)

Cummins, James. The Whole Truth San Francisco: North Pointe Press, 1986.

Although I had never watched Perry Mason on syndication, this book reminds me that these characters are stuck in our consciousness. In this series of poems Cummins sees these characters in sexual intercourse, fetishes, and recreational drug use. These sestinas also show that it is possible and maybe even preferable to take the form and use it in a sort of narrative. In poem 19 for instance, it reads exactly as a narrative:

"It seemed from that moment on, Perry calmed down,
Marching to that "different drummer," so to speak.
He quickly secured his release by out-arguing them.
Some of them accapeted this defeat as good therapy,"
While the smarter ones among them at least thought
He had what it took to survive: he was an asshole.
Cummins 45

Eds. Dacey, Phillip and David Jauss. Strong Measures: Contemporary American Poetry In Traditional Forms. New York: Harper and Row, 1986.

A really helpful encyclopedic anthology, with definitions of forms in the appendix, the book covers territory from strict formalists to free verse poets that perhaps, unwittingly wrote in nonce form. Thus, the argument here is that everything, including free verse is a form, but the editors took great pains to insist that they did not feel one is better than the other.

Dobyns, Stephen."Metaphor and the Authenticating Act of Memory" from Best Words, Best Order: Essays on Poetry. New York: St Martin's Griffin, 2003.

This essay considers what goes into the creation of a metaphor and how sensual concrete imagery makes for a fresher image. Dobyns also warns against obscurity for the sake of obscurity, and that the reader must have something to relate to in the poem. The poet should balance complexity with the idea that the reader must be able to recognize the image.

Emanuel, Lynn. Then, Suddenly. Pittsburgh, Pa: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999.

Emanuel is influenced by Gertrude Stein and Walt Whitman who she pays tribute to in her book a few times
and as I explored in my essay she has a question of aesthetics that is central in her writing in this collection. For her title poem, she chooses an epigraph by Oscar Wilde: All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. Thus, she is trying to write good poetry that has genuine feeling, as she exhorts her readers to �get a life in another world, because this is/a page as bare and smooth as a bowling alley,/� (p. 63).

Ed. French, Philip and Ken Wlaschin. The Faber Book of Movie Verse . Boston: Faber and Faber, 1993

Popular art has had an impact on how we write poetry and on how we approach it. Sometimes a poem suggests an image not unlike that taking place in a movie. This book has poems that cover how film affects our relationships such as "Continuous" by Tony Harrison, to musings on John Wayne's politics by Louise Erditch. Popular culture particularly film and its surrounding aura have given us another mythology to use in our work. Why should anything be off limits?

Gaspar, Frank Mass For The Grace Of A Happy Death. Tallahassee, FL:Anhinga Press, 1995

In the poem "Love is the Power which Impels One To Seek the Beautiful", we have a short narrative where the war- weary speaker reaches an epiphany regarding form: "There is the line with its heartbeat, and there is language with its catalog of figures, and there is symmetry and breath. Every beginning demands an end, every curve a consummation and the world and our lives must locate themselves in image or cease to exist" (40). This is a dictum that I would like to apply myself to aesthetically from hence on.

Halliday, Mark Jab. Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 2002.

In poems like "Thirteenth Round" Halliday plays with end rhyme, and in Strawberry Milkshake he uses an effective dramatic monologue. What connects his works is his sense of humor. Sometimes absurd, sometimes blunt as in "Why Must We Write?" he answers "�Also because//for 3 percent of us there will be fabulous jobs/in which mainly we can just read books for thirty years/and talk about the ones we've read and the ones we haven't read." (109). In his monologues, Halliday approaches the wit of Woody Allen with the craft of a Frank Bidart or Robert Browning.

Hirsch, Edward. How To Read A Poem and Fall in Love With Poetry. New York: Harcourt, 1999.

This is a book that reinforces our calling to arms as poets. Besides explaining some of the magic in poetry, Hirsch points out the wonderful statements that some of the great poets have made about this art as he cites Neruda�s comparison of poetry to a religious order; (p. 225) Hirsch also explains Lorca�s concept of �Duende� by using Neruda�s �Sola La Muerte� (p. 38). What is particularly useful about this book is that it is easy to read and thus, something I can recommend to people who are curious about poetry, but don�t want too much of literary theory or technical terminology.

Ed. Miller, E. Ethelbert. In Search of Color Everywhere. New York: Stewart, Tabori and Chang. 1994.

This is the second anthology of African American poetry I have read, the other being Black Poets edited by Dudley Randall. This one was far more diverse, and sophisticated. Some of the poems have a strong oral quality to it like Maya Angelou�s �Still I Rise�, while others have a classical sense to it like Robert Hayden�s �Those Winter Sundays.� The inclusion of soul and hip hop lyrics also give an added dimension to this book, serving as a predecessor to the hip hop poetry that young African American slam poets like Saul Williams has championed.

Rogers, Pattiann. Song Of The World Becoming: New and Collected Poems 1981-2001
Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 2001.

Rogers has a fervent curiosity about science that I don't see very often in poetry, and is able to be specific and abstract since she has a background in science. Even in her poems that enter with a purpose other than the muse about nature, nature rears her ugly (and beautiful) head. In a Seasonal Tradition, the characters in the poem reflect on how the music reminds them of "...icy willows blowing/ in the tundra night...."(237). This book demonstrates that much can be written on one subject and still be original and fresh as long as one knows and loves the subject intimately.

Winter, Jonah. Maine Raymond, N.H.: Slope Editions, 2002.

The poems in here remind me of the wackiness of Loren Goodman with a bit more grounding in form, and a slightly more accessible style. His use of the Holiday Family newsletter conceit is ingenious. I actually was trying to do the same thing a few years ago, but Winter did it better. His play on the odes was fun as well. Winter further solidifies my notion that humor is the best rhetorical tool that a writer has to effectively reach an audience, and also to promote self discovery, and joy in the art form.

Read/Post Comments (0)

Share on Facebook

Previous Entry :: Next Entry

Back to Top

:: JOURNAL HOME :: SUBSCRIBE TO THIS JOURNAL :: EMAIL ::