recommend.
(An unrelated drawing of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis fulfils your recommended daily sketch allowance.)
Poetry readers, writers: I am in urgent need of your recommendations for single texts (NOT anthologies) to teach to intermediate/advanced adult students of poetry. I'm teaching a workshop this summer that will be a reading-as-writers (i.e., literature-based) workshop, and I'd just love to hear what other people would teach. I'm going to choose two books (maybe three); it's a two-week (6-day) course.
Right now my brainstorm list includes My Life by Lyn Hejinian; Glass, Irony and God, by Anne Carson; Residence on Earth by Neruda; Some Ether by Nick Flynn. I'd like books that are challenging formally or thematically but that students who aren't extremely familiar with recent writing could still enjoy (for that reason, the Hejinian is lower on my list). I'm thinking of structuring the course around the construction of the self.
Let the discussion begin. What text would you love to teach? What text inspired you (and/or still does)? What text do you wish you'd been taught? And why, why, why? All suggestions very welcome.
Let the discussion begin. What text would you love to teach? What text inspired you (and/or still does)? What text do you wish you'd been taught? And why, why, why? All suggestions very welcome.
Labels: Link, Poetry, Teaching, Things to do
posted by Eireann at
3:14 PM
12 Comments:
Either of Brenda Shaughnessy's books: "Human Dark With Sugar" or "Interior of Sudden Joy"
I've really been enjoying Rachel Zucker as of late, though another in the program isn't as into her. Also Sophie Cabot Black and people keep talking about DA Powell, but I have yet to read anything by him, which will change soon.
I've always loved Sharon Olds, Anne Sexton, Claudia Emerson.
I've been thinking about this a lot, since I'm teaching poetry the next two semesters, how to balance a book list, what the right number might be, and on.
CD Wright Deepstep Come Shining or Rising, Falling, Hovering
can you guys tell me about the books you're recommending--why, what they're about etc.? I have both limited money and limited time, so can't buy/read everything, alas!
Mark Levine's Enola Gay: first book to make me think about sequence/"the book," how an arc rather than a "theme" can do that. dreamscapes? "productive ambiguity."
Katie Ford's Deposition: then o k there is a theme, worked out across a book. what do sections do. what is allowed to be a subject and for whom (a male poet, i forget whom, ripped it).
^ oh right, Enola Gay is and isn't "post-apocalyptic" (an essay addressing this somewhere), before it was cool. reoccurring mother, destructiveness. my favorite poem from it: http://bostonreview.net/BR24.1/levine.html
Deposition regards spiritual decision. forgive me if you know both these books. my favorite poem from it has something to do with hair in the mouth and a closet.
^^ o k, sorry (can't sleep). re-read your post. the Levine i could see as constructing the self across narrative & event (or through). also to "create the self" as a formalist & in lyric (his first book, 8 yrs earlier, was free verse). the Ford "creates the self" through thought process or in opposite to a concept, rejection of a frame, taking on a new purpose/method (a reconstruction).
wow, amanda, thank you for such thoughtful comments! will look into those. i don't know either.
W.S. Merwin "The Carrier of Ladders"(1970)--it contains the poem "Fourth Psalm:The Cerements" which is one of the most extraordinary poems I've ever read. I love "Glass, Irony, and God", too. Perhaps "The Beauty of the Husband" as well?
What fun! Thank you for posing the question---great fun to use my "real" education occasionally!
I guess I'd say that CD Wright's book-length poems are "formally challenging" and also I love her. These two concern the division between self and other. Deep Step is like a Southern road trip and it's sexy. Rising, Falling, Hovering deals with border politics and familial relationships.
Good additions to my "to read" list gleaned from everyone here. !Muchas Gracias!
I would have chosen "My Life" and "Glass, Irony and God" too, though I also like "Autobiography of Red" by Anne Carson as well. The poems follow a narrative, but I like the various forms (for lack of a better word) the poems take--interview, photograph, etc.
Molly mentioned Rachel Zucker and I think she'd be a great poet to consider. Her latest book, Museum of Accidents is really a pleasure to read and offers a lot for discussion. She reads one poem from the book here: http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/zucker.html
and another is posted here: http://42opus.com/v8n3/welcome-to
Zucker pushes form in an interesting but subtle way.
I think students could still enjoy Hejinian--even though My Life might take them a little while to get into, the language is so rich and interesting. Perhaps encouraging them to read some of it aloud would help.
I have enjoyed poems by Louise Glueck.
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