Introduction to
Poetry Autumn
2012
ENG202 Professor
Mead
Class
Schedule (Subject to Change)
Please have the appropriate sections of our textbook read,
re-read, digested, and annotated before the class meetings.
August
28 T Introduction
30 R Poems
Poets Poetry: An Introduction and Anthology, xxxix-26
September
4 T PPP, 27-76
6 R PPP, 27-76
11 T PPP,
77-110
13 R PPP,
77-110
18 T Bluebook
Exam I
20 R PPP,
111-152
25 T PPP,
111-152
27 R PPP,
153-177
October
2 T PPP, 153-177
4 R China
9 T China
11 R NO CLASS
16 T Bluebook
Exam II
18 R Conference
23 T PPP,
179-212
25 R Recitations
30 T PPP,
213-238
November
1 R Recitations
6 T PPP, 307-320
8 R Recitations
13 T Bluebook
Exam III
15 R PPP,
323-340
20 T PPP,
323-340
22 R NO CLASS
27 T PPP,
341-368
29 R Poetry Readings
December
4 T Poetry
Readings
6 R Evaluations. Poetry Readings
Required Text: Poems, Poets, Poetry: And Introduction &
Anthology, ed. Helen Vendler.
3rd
Edition, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010.
Course Goals: You
will have successfully completed this class if, after the class, you become a
life-long reader of poetry. Naturally, I
cannot grade you on would you might do in the future, but I wanted you to know
straight up what the goal is.
Being able to read poetry—and being able to derive pleasure
from reading poetry—is a rarer and rarer ability in the twenty-first
century. This is so for many reasons,
but I will give you two to chew on. Increasingly,
the language that is thrust upon us and required of us is first level stuff: summaries, reports, getting to the gist,
like/dislike, buy/sell, a certain number of stars, etc. This is language that only denotes the primary, surface meaning of its terms. Second, and without trying to sound like a
conspiracy nut, there is greater and greater pressure on people—and especially
young people—NOT to think or read critically.
You are much easier to control if you do (and think!) what you’re told.
To the people who view you only as a consumer, it is better that you purchase
language of inconsequential meaning than that you ponder words that might
possibly enable you to know who’s trying to determine your life choices.
Conversely, a life filled with poetry is an incalculably
richer life than one without poetry.
Imagine seeing the world only in black and white, or only in two rather
than three dimensions. Imagine a
flat-screen world of no depth. That is the world without poetry. Second, to
learn how to read a poem is to learn how to read. I mean that literally, because “reading” is
not simply decoding letters on a page or screen; reading every word of a book
is not reading. Reading is understanding
what the words mean, what they mean together, what secondary and tertiary
suggestions of meaning crop up, what the contexts of the words are, and how
those contexts speak to one another. Not
to completely prostitute the Muse to the Market, but being able to read a poem
prepares one to read (as in really, really read: to understand what the message is and what
the message’s moral standing is) legal documents, blogs, briefs, proposals,
books, claims, advertisements, directives, tweets, magazines, directions,
warnings, speeches, news clips, brochures, and in short all human communication
placed into language.
We will work slowly and carefully through Helen Vendler’s
book Poems, Poets, Poetry: An Introduction and Anthology, Third
Edition, skipping over areas that seem to need little re-phrasing and lingering
over areas that present difficulties to students. Our main classroom goals are these: to learn how to accept a poem on its own
terms; to understand that the relationships between what is written in a poem and how
it is written is what the poem means;
to learn how to find new things in a poem with each re-reading; to understand
that poetry, in its creation and consumption, is vital to democracy and the
human spirit.
Attendance: Our
class will be run very much as a workshop, requiring each student to arrive at
every class prepared and ready to engage in proactive discussion, questioning,
and critical conversation. Students who
miss more than three class meetings during the semester will have their final
grades lowered, usually by one decrement per absence past three. Tardiness will count as an absence. Students who miss excessive class meetings or
who are routinely tardy may be asked to withdraw from the course. Please understand that there are no
“legitimate” or “illegitimate” absences; if university responsibilities require you to miss more than three
class meetings, we can probably work out an extra project to avoid your being
penalized simply for being an athlete or whatever.
Students with special
needs must contact the instructor as soon as possible, and he will make all
reasonable accommodations.
Bluebook Exams: With each exam, you will be given a short
poem and asked to examine the poem’s technical dimensions before proposing an
interpretation.
Recitations: Each student will memorize a poem, either one
from the book or another with permission of the instructor. The poem should be at least twenty lines
long. Students who wish to receive a
high grade for this requirement (B+, A-, A) will not only memorize the poem,
but recite the poem critically, musically, and/or dramatically.
Poetry Readings:
Each student will write an original poem that attempts to imitate a certain
quality of a poem in the textbook. Do
not merely copy a poem’s form, content, vocabulary, or other such surface
elements. Instead, try to imitate a
poem’s use of syntax, line breaks, alliteration, tone, sound effects, and/or
voice. Students will read their poems (they needn’t be memorized) to the class
and give a brief explanation of what they were trying to imitate from the
original. The poetic value of your work will be less important than the
seriousness with which you pursue the technical issues of the original. That is to say, the quality of your reading of the original poem will be
more important than the quality of your written
imitation.
Office Hours:
Students who are interested in excelling in the course will want to meet with
other students, librarians, and their instructors outside of class to deepen,
gauge, and redirect their work. I
encourage you to form study groups that meet, say, once or twice a week for
forty-five minutes or an hour; to make appointments with faculty librarians in
order to learn more about poets and their poems; to visit the instructor to
chat about particular poems or larger issues in the class.
Old Main: Room 312B MWF 10-11, TR 8:30-9:30 AND BY
APPOINTMENT.
tel. 438-4336, smead@stmartin.edu.
You may leave me a voice or email message, but I cannot promise to respond
before the next class meeting.
Please visit http://stephenxmead.blogspot.com/
for syllabi, handouts, policy statements on plagiarism and attendance, and
useful links.
Grading: Exam I 1/6
Final Grade
Exam
II 1/6 Final Grade
Exam
III 1/6 Final Grade
Recitation 1/6 Final Grade
Poetry
Reading 1/6 Final Grade
Participation 1/6 Final Grade
Please check your
university email in box regularly, as this is the only way I can contact all of
you in case of timely messages, changes in syllabus, or helpful prompts.
