English 307: Writing Poetry in Traditional Forms

Course Schedule

Sept. 10   DUE: a poem in any form (typed, 16 copies); Introduction: Free Verse and the Old and New Formalisms; READ: Dacey, "Introduction" (1-16); Brooks, "We Real Cool" (38); Carlile, "Havana Blues" (40); Cassity, "Links" (50); Justice, "First Death" (157); Kumin, "Morning Swim" (180); Levertov, "Bedtime" (199); Merwin, "Grandfather in" (224); Mezey, "My Mother" (226); Miranda, "Horse Chestnut" (231); Nims, "Love and Death" (252); Oles, "A Manifesto" (256); Spacks, "Finding a Yiddish" (341)

Sept. 17   DUE: Rhyming Couplets; Discuss: Prosody, Metrics, Scansion, Rhyme, Line Breaks; READ: Dacey, "Appendix A" (423-29); Bishop, "The Armadillo" (30); Hecht, "More Light!" (125); Heyen, "Riddle" (131); McGrath, "The End of the World" (213); Miranda, "The Magician" (232); Pollitt, "Ballet Blanc" (271); Rich, "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" (282); Roethke, "My Papa's Waltz" (289); Ryan, "Consider a Move" (298); Schnackenberg, "The Paperweight" (306); Simpson, "The Boarder" (318); Sutter, "Shoe Shop" (360); Van Duyn, "Economics" (376); Warren, "What Voice" (396); Wilbur, "Piazza di Spagna" (400); Williams, "Why God Permits" (403); Young, "Lester Leaps in" (419)

Sept. 24   DUE: Rhyming Quatrains; Discuss: The Sonnet; READ: Bennett, "The True Story" (25); Carruth, "Late Sonnet" (49); Hacker, "Sonnet Ending" (114); Hathaway, "Why That's Bob Hope" (120); Hummer, "The Rural Carrier" (147); Jordan, "Sunflower Sonnet #2" (156); Kees, "For my Daughter" (165); Kooser, "Anniversary" (176); Nemerov, "A Primer" (248); Skloot, "My Daughter Considers" (322); , Stafford, "Friend Who Never Came"(344)

Oct. 1   DUE: Sonnet; Discuss: Terza Rima; READ: Brock, "The Sea Birds" (37); Pack, "The Boat" (257); Plath, "Medallion" (266); Revell, "Belfast" (277); Ridland, "Another Easter" (283); Snodgrass, "A Visitation" (335)

Oct. 8   DUE: Terza Rima; Discuss: Rimas Dissolutas; READ: Anderson, "The Blue Animals" (17); Merrill, "A Renewal" (221); O'Hara, "To the Poem" (252); Plath, "Black Rook" (268); Van Duyn, "Causes" (372);

Oct. 15   DUE: Rimas Dissolutas; Discuss: The Sestina; READ: Ashbery,"Farm Implements" (20); Bishop, "Sestina" (29); Cooley, "Naked Poetry" (65); Dacey, "Jill, Afterwards" (80); Hirsch, "At Kresge's Diner" (132); Justice, "Sestina" (159); Kroll, "Sestina" (178); Lefcowitz, "Emily Dickinson's Sestina" (193); Logan, "Tatiana Kalatschova" (206); Rios,"Nani" (287); Starbuck, "Double Semi-Sestina" (348); Wakoski,"Sestina"(389); Wallace, "Grandmother Grace" (391); Warne, "Blackbird Sestina"(392); Wojahn, "Floating Houses" (410)

Oct. 22   DUE: Sestina; Discuss: The Villanelle; READ: Bishop, "One Art" (31); Collins, "The Story" (64); Disch, "The Rapist's Villanelle" (92); Dunn, "Tangier" (95); Hacker, "Villanelle" (111); Harkness, "The Man" (117); Hugo, "The Freaks" (146); Justice, "Women in Love" (160); Kees, "The crack" (165); Klappert, "Ellie Mae" (172); Levertov, "Obsessions" (199); Roethke, "The Waking" (289); Wagoner, "Canticle" (387)

Oct. 29   DUE: Villanelle; Discuss: The Ballade; READ: Block, "Ballade of the Back Road" (32); Randall, "Southern Road" (273); Sherwin, "Ballade of the Grindstones (315)

Nov. 5   DUE: Ballade; Discuss: The Pantoum; READ: Ashbery, "Pantoum" (19); Justice, "In the Attic" (161); Lux, "All the Slaves"(211); Meinke, "Atomic Pantoum" (217); Stewart, "Punk Pantoum" (352)

Nov. 12   DUE: Pantoum; Discuss: The Canzone; READ: Hacker, "Canzone" (111); Lehman, "Towards the Vanishing Point" (195)

Nov. 19   DUE: Canzone; Discuss: Nonce Forms; READ: Gluck, "Phenomenal Survivals" (103); Heffernan, "A Colloquy" (128); Kinnell, "To Christ" (169); Kumin, "January 25th" (181); Lowell, "Mr. Edwards" (208); McBride, "A Blessing" (212); Nemerov, "The Goose Fish" (249); Tate, "The Book of Lies" (365)

Nov. 26   DUE: Nonce Form; Discuss: Light Verse; READ: Creeley, "Ballad of the Despairing Husband" (74); Cunningham, "For my Contemporaries" (77) and "Epitaph" (78); Feirstein, "L'Art" (97); Nims, "Love and Death" (252); Zimmer, "A Zimmershire Lad" (422)

Dec. 3   DUE: Light Verse; Discuss Revision (Frost); Course Evaluation

Dec. 10   Discuss Publishing; Read Light Verse

Please type all poems single space (double space between stanzas) and make fifteen copies for class distribution. Some of the copy shops have special Sunday rates.

Class attendance and participation are required. Incompletes are unacceptable.

Required Texts

Strong Measures, edited by Philip Dacey and David Jauss
The Land of Cockaigne, by Ed Ochester

Recommended Texts

The Uses of Adversity, by Ronald Wallace
Thirteen Ways of Looking for a Poem, by Wendy Bishop