English 62 / Comparative Literature 62: Twentieth Century Poetry (but not from the U.S.)
Charles Bernstein (charles.bernstein @ english.upenn.edu)
Teaching assistant: Caroline Henze-Gongola (chenze @ sas.upenn.edu)
Contact either of us if you have any questions.
Spring 2013
note date in syllabus refer to previous year; will be updated in Fall 2012.
Introduction
Requirements
Wreading listserve archive
posts to wreading@mailman.ssc.upenn.edu
Note: English 288-1 and English 288-2 –– 20th Century American Poetry — and Englare the companion course to English 62.
This syllabus is a work in progress and subject to change.
Further resources: Introduction to Electronic Literature (to be intergrated into this syllabus)
Key E-Resouces:
Gale Literature Resource Center
LION
Literary Encyclopedia
Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Twentieth-Century American Poetry
Required Books (at Penn Book Center)
Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris, eds., Poems for the
Millennium Vols 1 and 2
Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp by Pierre Cabanne, tr. Ron
Padgett
Security Positions by Sarah Dowling
Recommended:
Modernisms: A Literary Guide by Peter Nicholls
1. (Sept. 8) Introduction & Yeats
Because we meet only once per week, I want to
start in on the discussion of Yeats in the first meeting. Also
try to do the Poem Profiler self-assessment.
W. B. Yeats (1865-1939): "A Vision" and "The Second Coming"
in PM1;
___ "Lake
Isle of Innisfree" and "Sailing to Byzantium" (via class
e-library: password required); or on e-mule: "Innisfree," "Sailing,"
"Second " ;
plus "The
Song of Wandering Aengus "
Audio: three mp3 files: (1)Yeats
reading "Lake Isle of Innisfree," (2)
his comments on this poem, and (3) his 1936 comments "On
Modern Poetry"
Extenstion (optional): Hamilton
Camp's 1964 folk setting of the poem
Auden, "In
Memory of W.B. Yeats"
Further information on Yeats, including biography and complete
poems, is available from LION via library e-recources.
•Poem
Profiler self-test: fill out the profiler in the abstract,
to reflect your own preferences. If you have a question about
the meaning of one of the terms, post it to the blog. If you
like: post your self-test to the blog.
•Use the profiler on Yeats
•What is Yeats's problem with modern poetry? (Based on
the 1936 sound recording.)
• What does the Lake Isle of Innisfree symbolize?
• Describe Yeats's voice.
•What qualities do you find distinctive to the recording
(that you did not necessarily find in the text)?
•Compose one question for the seminar, based on the reading.
class lecture; modernist time line
2. (Sept. 15) French Modernisms
PEPP def. "symbolism" (via library e-resources Princeton Encylopedia of Poetry & Poetic/LION (PEPP))
2, part one: Baudelaire, Rimbaud,
and Mallarmé (LION/PEPC)
Charles Baudelaire (LION): "À
une Mendiante Rousse" (1845-6), "La
Muse Vénale" (1857): these two poems will be
discussed in class but read also selections in in PM1.
Stéphan
Mallarmé (1842-1898), Un
coup de dés will also be discussed in class:
_____in PM1 (both selections)
_____ "Crisis
in Poetry" (full essasy) -- OR-- just read the excerpt.
Arthur
Extensions (optional):
______ "Be
Always Drunken" tr. Arthur Symmons (cf.: O'Neill quotes
in Long Day's Journey into Night), "Be Drunken" tr. Bernstein
_______ Further translations of the poem at Fleursdumal.org and
check links to complete
_______ . "To the
reader" ["Hypocrite lecteur, -- mon semblable, -- mon frere"]
______. Essays: Salon
of 1959 & Painter
of Modern Life (1863)
_______. French texts
_____, "À
une Mendiante Rousse" (tr. lined-up side by side)
Mallarmé. Un
coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard (web
versions French & English)
Mallarmé, “The Four Salutes”
Valéry on Mallarmé via
Rasula
Mallarmé & Baudelaire:
translations of Poe's "Raven"; Mallarmé's book was
done in collabortation with Manet.
Rimbaud, A Season in Hell (bilingual)
•Use Poem Profiler on Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and Baudelaire
•What is Baudelaire's attitude toward the "muse venal" (the
venal muse) and to the "mendiante rousse" (redhaired
beggar)? Does he objectify them, is he sympathetic, empathetic?
In what way are these poem "modern" (subject matter? form? attitude?)
Which translations do you like best, least & why?
•Contrast Yeats and Mallarmé and Baudelaire. Based
on your poem profiling self-test, what does this tell you about
your preferences?
•What for Mallarme is "pure poetry"? What is
the "crisis" for poetry? In Coup de dés: what
is the importance of the white space and of the layout? How would
the poem be different if it was laid out in traditional stanzaic
form (try that out to see)?
Wreading:
•Why does Eugene O'Neill quote Baudelaire and Dowson [see
next week's readings] in the last act of Long Day's Journey
into Night?
•Compose one question for the seminar, based on the reading.
Try a homophonic translation of Un Coup dés (French
version linked above) (see experiments
list #2). Comment on the result.
For those who know French: try translating a poem.
2, part two: Part One Apollinaire & Cendrars (both head notes via (via LION/Columbia Dictionary)
Apollinaire
Blaise
Cendrars, "Prose of the Transiberian" in PM1; see image of
work (painting by Sonia Delaunay) at Penn Library: overview, detail, 2d
detail. Alternative web-tr
by Ekaterina
Likhtik
Apollinaire [Guillelmus
(or Wilhelm) Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky] (1880-1918), "Zone" (1912)
in PM1; note: "Zone" in
French
____ Alcools (1913): "Le
Pont Mirabeau" (& sound files), "Clotilde," & "Annie"
____Calligrammes: Poems of Peace and
War 1913-1916 (1918): ."Ombre",
"Horse Calligramme" in PM1; "La
Colombe Poignardée et le jet d’eauat" & "Lettre
Ocean"; see others at UBU, but
esp. "Il
Pleut" (It Rains).
Apollinaire
on PennSound
NOTE: In class, we will focus on "Le Point Mirabeau" and
the "Calligrammes."
Extentions (optional): the remaining Apollinaire in PM1; more
Apollinaire in French & another
site,
Calligrammes (pdf of full book)
•Contrast "Ombre" ("Shadow"), Apollinaire's World War
I poem, with Owen's and Sassoon's (on this syllabus, this comes
next week, so you can pick up then); and his "Le Point Mirabeau" with
the lost-love pomes of the last set of readings for next week.
•The Calligrammes make use visual arrangement and
typography as an integral part of the poems. How does this affect
the meaning or space of the poem. Compare to Mallarmé's
use of white space and typogrpahy in Un
coup de dés.
•Discuss the atmosphere or sensibility or mode of feeling
in these poems. Use poem profiler.
•How do "Zone" and "Prose of the Transiberian" usher in
the modern, new world?
•Compose one question for the seminar, based on the reading.
Wreading:
Try some imitations of these poems. Or a homophonic translation
based on listening to Apollinaire's reading.
Juxtapose images and words for either of the poets (or one of
the earlier poets) along the lines of Delaunay's collaboration
with Cendrars.
Make a "calligramme."
For those who know French: try translating a poem.
•Comment on your experiments so far: useful?, and, if so,
in what way?
3. (Sept. 22)
3A, part one: The Great War
and Modern Memory:
Rupert Brooke
(1887-1915),
"The Soldier" (1914) (Wiki & Oxford)) Respondent: Aaron
Wilfred
Owen (& Oxford) (1893-1918): "Dulce
et Decorum est", "Greater
Love", "Anthem
for a Doomed Yout" [These poems also availble via LION at library e-resources.]
Siegfried
Sassoon (& Oxford) (1886-1967): "Repression
of War Experience" and "Blighters"
[also available at LION]
Extensions (optional):
Sassoon, audio:
"Died of Wounds" & "Attack" (note:
full Sassoon poems & bio available on LION)
Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918), Trench Poems: "Break of Day
in the Trenches", “Returning, We Hear Larks", "Dead Man's
Dump" (LION)
RESPONDENT: LORNA, LANDON
Further reading: Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory
•What are the attitudes toward war reflected in these
poems? How does this translate into the forms of the work.
•How does World War I affect modernist art?
•Compare the poets this week to Apolinaire's response to
WWI and also to love ... We didn't get a chance to disucss Apolinaire last week, so this is a good time to comment on his work. Respondent: Rivka
• Pick your favorite and least favorite poem of the poets
assigned. What is the reason for your selection?
•Compose one question for the seminar, based on the reading.
Wreading: Translate one of the poems into a totally contemporary
idiom, including references and diction. (That is, take one of
the poems and imagine you were writing the "same" poem
in 2006, with the current war and culture as your subject. Update
the references but also the language, the diction/slang etc.)
3B, part two: Romance
dies hard or maybe don't die at all
Dowson
British poet Alfred Noyes (1880-1958), "The
Highwayman" -- Audio: read
by Noyes; setting/song by Phil
Ochs ( more
on Ochs's version); note animated YouTube of reading. LION Noyes bio RESPONDENT: LEAH
John
Masefield (1878-1967), "Sea-Fever"; Penn audio & public audio site; from Salt
Water Ballads (1902)
Hilaire
Belloc (1870 - 1953), "Tarentella" (1932): audio and text;
also at Poetry
Archive
A.E. Housman: from A Shropshire Lad (1896): "Loveliest
of trees, the cherry now", "When
I was one-and-twenty", "With
rue my hear is laden" [word file of these three
poems): Oxford bio
Ernest Dowson (1867-1900): "Non
Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae
Canadian poet Robert
Service's (1874(?)-1958) The Spell of the Yukon: "The
Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee" (also
avail. as word
file); Listen to Jean Shepherd recite these poems: "McGrew" & McGee". Service web site, Wiki, Oxford.
RESPONDENT: MOLLY
General Respondent: REBECCA LEVINE
Extensions
(optional): "The Land God Forgot" and "The
".
Extensions (optional): Belloc: set
of poems; see esp., from A
Bad Child's Book of Beasts (1896) "The
Hippopotamus" & "The
Dromedary"; also "The
World Is Full of Double Beds"
•Go ahead, read the poems out loud.
•Discuss the politics of the form and prosody of these
poets, with special reference to their being part of the modernist
period. In other words, what particular political and social
concerns are addressed by each poem and how does their use of
form reflect that. How do they
"fit" in to a period of wild formal experimentation? Any thoughts
on gender issues as reflected in the poems?
•How would you compare these poets to the War Poets (Owen,
Sassoon)?
•Belloc was fascinated by the grammaphone. How would this
have affected his poem?
•Is poetry that is entertaining or light less important
that "art" poems such as those by Mallarmé?
•Do these poems lose their force with the passage of time?
Does that diminish the aesthetic value?
•Compare Apollinaire as WWI poet with the UK poets of the "Great
War". Compare Apollinaire's "Le Pont Mirabeau" to
Dowson's
"Cynarae" — how do these love poems differ from
other love poems in the section of earlier love poems you may
have read.
•Compare the readings for last week and this week; not
just Apollinaire but the formal qualities of the French modernists
to these UK poets. How is "modernity" reflected in
form and content in the poets and what makes them differerent
from one another and from the group.
•Compose one question for the seminar, based on the reading.
>>
Wreading: Acrostic chance: apply a Mac Low acrostic procedure
to one poem (see Experiments,
#8). Comment on results
4. (Sept. 29) Futurisms (via Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry Poetics / LION (PEPP))
The best critical account of
the futurist and formalist poetry and art around the time of
Wordl War I is Marjorie Perloff's The Futurist Moment.
El Lissitzky and Hans Arp, Kunstimen ("Artisms")
book cover, 1925.
4A, Futurisms Part One: Marinetti (via LION) & Italian
Futurism
Marinetti (via library e-resources Literary Encyclopedia) & related in PM1: pp. 193-215; new tr.
of Futurist
Manifesto
(optional:My performance of "The Futurist Manifesto" and Loy's "Aphorisms" at MoMA)
Mina Loy, “Feminist Manifesto,” “Aphorisms
on Futurism,” 1914 (pdf/Penn);
also pdf/Penn
of ms of "Feminist Manifesto).
Images (Penn only: off campus requires you to log in, then refresh): "Parole
in Liberta" (1915) also nonrestricted
gif, "Vive
La France," study/drawing for "Vive
La France", " Zang
Tumb Tuuum"
Futurist
time line (mirror
of page); the
gang
Marinetti PennSound
page
See photo
of Luigi Russola with noise makers & his noise
manifesto
Carlo
Carrà, Interventionist Demonstration (Patriotic
Holiday-Freeword Painting)
[Manifestazione interventista (Festa patriottica-dipinto
parolibero)], 1914
RESPONDENT: REBECCA LEVINE, JC WILT, ANDREA
For further reading/listenting:
Marinetti manifestoes: "The
Founding and Manifesto of Futurism" (1909), "We
Abjure Our Symbolist Masters, the Last Lovers of the Moon" (1911-15), "Technical
Manifesto of Futurist Literature" (1912), and "Portrait
of Mussolini" (1929); "Destruction
of Syntax/Words in Freedom,, "War,
"; "Futurist Synthesis of War"
Futurism web site
Some more images and words
Futrurism
and advertising
Conversation
on Futurism -- Claire Bishop & Boris Groys
Bernstein performs Marinetti and Loy at MoMA
•Respond to the points made in Marinetti's manifesto. What
are the politics of this poetry? Why does he emphasize speed,
destruction, war, and the future?
•How is Marinetti's visual poetics different from Mallarme
and Apollinaire?
•What is the signficance of "noise" in this work,
as for instance for Luigi Russola?
•Once again, this is writing that comes out of the period
around World War 1. Thoughts?
•Compose one question for the seminar, based on the reading.
Wreading:
Rewrite one of the manifestos for a contemporary aesthetic position
Burroughs fold in: Take two different pages of poetry or manifesto
and cut the pages in half vertically. Paste the mismatched pages
together.
4B, Futurism Part Two: Russian Futurism
Mayakovsky
reading: PM1: pp. 220-250
Mayakovsky images (Penn only): "A
Tragedy" designed by David and Vladimir Burliuk (1914) ; Dliagolosa
(For the Voice) (1923); Book.
For class: Khlebnikov's "Incantation by Laughter"(my tr.) and
see also alt.
translation and Roman Jakobson reading: MP3
plus focus on Kruchenyck/Larionov, Pomade (pdf & with
translation and audio —go to "Exlore the Books");
Mayakovsky, "Screaming My Head Off"(and listen
to Mayakovsky read this poem, see alt. title "At the
Top of My Voice"). Literary Encyl on Mayakovsky.
PennSound
Getty Futurist page of sound files..
Respondent for Khlebinikov–LEAH, for Mayakovsky ("Screaming My Head Off)–Aaron
Extensions (optional):
Russian Futurist manifesto: "A
Slap in the Face to Public Taste" (1917)
Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922), Manifestos ("We
accuse the older generation ...,: "The Word as Such," "The
Letter as Such"; "To
"; & at UBU, Klebnikov@RussianPoetry.net
"!Futurian," "Let Them Read on My Gravestone," "On Poetry": pdf
Kruchonyk's
visual and zaum poems; see also Gerlad
Janecek's essay on Kruchonykh's zaum poetry
Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930), PennSound
audio/bilingual poems
Rodchenko/Mayakovsy
Ads
Liabov Popova (1889-1924): Constructivist
Composition, Linear
Composition, "Spatial
Force Construction"
Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956), Cigarette ad; "Better
Pacifiers There Have Never Been"; Mayavoksy
ad for cookies; portrait
of Mayakovsky
Russian
avant-garde books (Getty collection of digized books) and pdfs
of book
•What is your response to these approaches to poetry? In
other words, discuss the forms and significance of visual and
sound poetry, and of the manifestos.
•Contrast Russian and Italian Futurism. How do the manifestosdiffer
in orientation. A related question:
•What are the politics of this poetry? How does it connect
with the Revolution of 1917?
•Khlebnikov and Kruchonyk developed a conception of "zaum" poetry
(transense), using invented words. Discuss this development:
is it possible to communicate with made-up words, how does zaum
relate to music and to more tradtional forms of poety. Is zaum "absorptive" or does it resist the reader's absorption.
•The Russian futurists engaged in many verbal-visual collaborations.
Describe the specific approaches they took and the significance
of these collaborations aesthetically, politically, and socially?
•A more general question: over the past weeks, you have
been readings accounts of the First World War (and now the Russian
Revolution) through poems. What is the difference between such
a poet's eye view (or ear view) and that of an historian or from
political documents of the time?
•Compose one question for the seminar, based on the reading.
Wreading: create visual or sound poems or visual-verbal poems,
or zaum (neologistic/made-up words) poems. Or rearrange/cut-up
material from this week's reading to created your own poems.
For those who know Russian: try translating a poem.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3
Class Trip with Caroline
view Duchamp's work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Sunday, October 3rd - the first Sunday of each month is a "pay what you wish" day. (Otherwise, admission is $12 with your Penn ID.) - the museum is open from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. (time for our field trip is TBA).
Email Caroline if you plan to go!
________________________________________________________________
5. (Oct. 6)
Recommended:
A reading by Swedish poets Jorgen Gassilewski and Anna Hallberg
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
I will be hosting this event, which is part of English 262; consult that syllabus for more information on these poets and contemporary Scandanavian poetry.
5A, Part One — DADA (click for PEPC def. or use e-resc.) & Literary Encylopedia (or via e-resc)
The First International Dada Fair at Dr. Otto Burchard’s
Berlin art gallery. Schlichter’s pig soldier can be seen
hanging from the ceiling, while George Grosz stands at right
with hat and cane
Reading: PM1 pp. 289-309,
746-48
Tristan
Tzara (& see Literary Ency and LION) (1896-1963)
Hugo Ball (via LION) (1886-1927)
Photo; another
Dada sound poems
Picabia (extensions: Picabia books) Respondent: Pim
RESPONDENTS: Marion and : Rebecca Borison on Ball
Extensions/Optional:
Raoul Hausmann: "The
Art Critic" (click on image to enlarge); "A.B.C.D.
Portrait of Artist", " Dad )" (1920)
Photo of Opening
of First International Dada Fair (1920), Photo
of Hausmann and
John Heartfield, "Rationalization
Is on the March" (1927), "This
is the Salvation They Bring" (1938), "Life
and Events in Universal-City at 12:05 noon"; "German
Akorns 1933"
Hannah Hoch (1889-1978), "Collage", "Cut
with a Kitchen Knife"(detail) full image. RESPONDENT: LEAH
Excellent German
lanauge Dada site.
International DaDa e-library
•Why was this work denounced as anti-poetry: write
an attack and also a defense of the poetic/artistic value of
the work.
•Continue discussion of surface/depth from the previous
week
•How does collage operate in these works. How is collage
differnt in poems versus visual art (e.g. (Hearfield, )?
•Much of this work is highly political without making direct
political statement. Discuss the politics of form (collage, discontinuity,
performance, manifesto) in these works.
•Dicuss the performances of Hugo Ball. In a more general
way, discuss the performative nature of many of these works (at
the most basic level — how does that differ from lyric
poetry that one reads privately to oneself?)
•It is sometimes said that the Dadaists tried to break
down the distinction between art and everyday life.
How so?
•Compose one question for the seminar, based on the reading.
Wreading: Tzara's hat: Cut up the poem into individual words
(alternative: phrase, line) and put them in a hat. Reassemble
5B, Part Two — Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) in PM1, & audio of "Ur
Sonata"
Digital images: "Blue
Birds", Type
Reklame, page
of book collaboration
See also: Schwitters's Anna
Blume (reprodiuction of German book); text
of Anna Blume
See also digital version of Schwitter's magzaine Merz
Respondent: Pim, Henry
Extensions (optional) on Sound Poetry:
Steve McCaffery's brief history of Sound
Poetry at Ubu and McCaffery in PM2, p. 427
McCaffery, Carnival:
sight and sound (see IV. items 4 & 5, text and sound)
Henri Chopin, Fresque
de l'Impalapable voix (1990)
François Dufréne, "Batteries
vocales, Crirythme" (1958)
Christian Prigent, "Orgasm" (1998)
Christian Bok -- Studio
111 performance, esp. 1, 4, 6, 7 (including another Hugo Ball)
Caroline
Bergvall's "About
Face"
Tomomi
Adachi
EPC
Sound Poetry Index
Carnivocal
Ubuweb
•Compare Schwitter's, Hugo Ball, and Khebnikov in terms
of poetics and the use of neologism (made-up words)
•Try to do a close listening of one movement of the Ur
Sonata,mapping out its changes and what it might suggest to you?
• It is reported that when Schwitters first performed
this, some in the audience wept? How is this possible? Is this
work conceptual, intellectual, or visceral. Run the poetry profiler
on the work.
•Do you see this as a work attacking "sense" (in
a Dadaist way? otherwise?) or making a new kind of sound-sense?
•Has poetry gone too far with this? Is this even poetry?
If this is poetry, how would you define a poem? If not, what
is this? Why isn't it music (or is is music?)?
•Compare the versions of the Ur Sonata
•Discuss some of Schwitters other works. Compare his poetry
to his visual art.
Wreading: Create a sound poem. If you have a sound editor: remix
the Schwitters files. Record or rehearse your own version of
the Ur Sonata.
5C. Class Extension
Weds., Oct.. 6, 6pm: Reading
Jorgen Gassilweski and Anna Hallberg from Sweden
KHW, 6pm
(I will introduce)
please post responses to the reading and conversation
________
Recommended: Weds. Oct. 13
A lunch program with Eilenn Myles on "Inferno"
presented by Feminism/s 12:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
RSVP: to wh@writing.upenn.edu or call 215-746-POEM
ALSO Myles reads at 8 at ICA
6. (Oct. 13)
6A, Part 1: Duchamp:
The Bride Stripped Bare by Its Viewers (Maybe)
Pierre Cabanne. Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) [required text available at the Penn Book Center]
Duchamp in PM1
Duchamp collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art: If you haven't seenthe Duchamp at the PMA, please go before class.
Digital
Images: Bicyle
Wheel
Bottlerack/Dryer/Hedgehog
Disk
inscribed with puns: "Esquivons Les Ecchymoses
Esquimeaux Aux Mots Exquis": Let us avoid the bruises
of the Eskimoes in exquisite words
Fountain
Rrose
Selavy (Man Ray)
Search
Phil. Museum of Art images for Duchamp
L.H.O.O.Q
Comb: PMA
image; compare New
Guinea Spirit Figure
short
sound clip
"Eyechart"
"In
Advance of a Broken Arm"
"Three
Standard Stoppages" & "A
Network of Stoppages" (1913-1914) & discussion
Apollinaire
Enameled; PMA
image (better detail) (1916-1917)
Étant
Donnés, interior
view (1946-1968)
Thumbnails
of art
RESPONDENT: LORNA, JC WILT
Extensions (optional): : interview
with Duchamp (may not work) and another
interview; Duchamp web site: Toute-fait (may
not work); Marchel Duchamp.org
Duchamp at UBU
The Writings of Marcel Duchamp, De Capo Press
from Marjorie Peloff's 21st-Century Modernism, Chapter
3: The Conceptual Poetics of Marcel Duchamp [ .pdf | .rtf ]
•In what way might Duchamps' work be relevant for modernist
poetry (apart from the immediate fact of his own literary work)?
Discuss in terms of both the ready-mades and the Large Glass.
•Discuss the approach to art that Duchamp takes in the
Cabanne interview: is he doing away with art or shifting the
frame of what we take to be be art?
•How does the voyeurism work in "Étant Donnee";
compare the use of the "gaze" with the Baudelaire's
portraits of woman or other poems in which this issue is relevant.
•Discuss the small fetish objects on display at the museum,
with special reference to the significance of the writing/inscriptions.
•Perloff writes, "Duchamp’s term for the all
but imperceptible difference between two seemingly identical
items was, the term infrathin, a term closely linked to
what Duchamp also called deferral or delay."
Discuss how this relates to Duchamp's work (for example his puns)
or more generally to poetry and poetics.
Wreading: Create a poem or collage based on cut-ups and excerpts
from the Duchamp Dialogues.
6B, Part Two: Surrealism (PEPP/LION)
Breton
& Eluard, seated
PM1 338-341, 465-485, 492-95:
André Breton, Philippe Soupalt,
Robert Desnos,
RESPONDENTS: BRETON–LANDON, DESNOS–MOLLY
Extensions:
Surrealism
manifestos [Penn only] & Literary Encyc
Andre Breton and Leon Trotsky, “Manifesto:
Towards a Free Revolutionary Art” (1938) Response: Pim
•Describe visual images in two poems. What is the relation
of the visual image to the poem's theme or point-of-view?
•What is surrealism?
•Use profiler on one or more poem
•Is there a politics to this poetry?
•Do you see a connection between Surrealim and Dada or
Futurism (focussing on the poems of each movement)?
•Compose one question for the seminar, based on the reading.
Wreading:
Substitution (1): "Mad libs." Take the poem or other source text
and put blanks in place of three or four words in each line,
noting the part of speech under each blank. Fill in the blanks
being sure not to recall the original context.
Substitution (2): "7 up or down." Take a poem or other text and
substitute another word for every noun, adjective, adverb, and
verb; determine the substitute word by looking up the index word
in the dictionary and going 7 up or down, or one more, until
you get a syntactically suitable replacement. (Cf.:
Lee Ann Brown's "Pledge" & Michael
Magee's "Pledge" (go
to p.37 of pdf
of Morning Constitutional) or Clark Coolidge
and Larry Fagin, On the Pumice of Morons.) If you
find this too pre-determined, remember that that may be the value,
your lack of control. However, a "liberal" alternative: pick
any one of the 7 words up or down.
Substitution (3): Find and replace. Systematically replace one
word in the source poem with another word or string of words. Perform
this operation serially with the same source text, increasing
the number of words in the replace string.
Further Reading/French Poetry (optional):
Paul Valery, Alfred
Jarry, Max Jacob, & Franics Ponge in PM1. [On Ubu Roi]
Valery's
"The Cemetery by the Sea" (tr. Charles Guenther)
Ponge, "Le
cimetière marin"
André Breton and Phillippe Soupault Les champs magnetiques (Magnetic
Fields), 1920
Georgio De Chirico, Hebdomeros
Jacques Rouboud and Anne-Marie Albiach in PM2
Olivier Cadiot's Red,
Green, & Black, tr. Charles Bernstein and
Cadiot
The Random House Book of Twentieth Century French Poetry,
ed. Paul Auster;
The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry,
ed. Mary Ann Caws
For those who know French: try translating a poem.
7. (Oct. 20) Sarah Dowling, Visiting Poet-Scholar
Brossard, Wah, & Dowling
d
Brossard & Dowling
•required book: Security Position by Sarah Dowling
12 or 20 interview with Dowling
Penn interview with Dowling
•Fred Wah, Pictograms from the Interior of BC (start with opening 20 pages, read on as possible)
Wah Close Listening interview MP3 -- on his PennSound page (and optional listen to more there)
•Nicole Brossard
"The Throat of Lee Miller," from Museum of Bone and Water
>her reading of the poem at PennSound: "Le Cou de Lee Miller" (3:31): MP3
Brossard in PM2 (note volume 2!!)
"Poetic Politics" (Gale) in The Politics of Poetic Form
Brossard
in 99 Poets
How(2) Brossard interview
Extentions (optional):
Janice Williamson interview of Brossard: Gale
Brossard at PennSound
>>>Send to the list two substantial questions for Dowling about her work.
Wreading/Dicussion:
Here is Wikipedia's definition of ekphrasis: Ekphrasis or ecphrasis is the graphic, often dramatic description of a visual work of art. In ancient times it referred to a description of any thing, person, or experience. The word comes from the Greek ek and phrasis, 'out' and 'speak' respectively, verb ekphrazein, to proclaim or call an inanimate object by name. To some extent, both Wah's and Brossard's poems are ekphrastic. Think about their versions of ekphrasis and compose an ekphrastic poem. Choose one part of the definition, and exaggerate it in your experiment. Try to make it so extreme that anyone could guess which part you've chosen.
Here are some questions on each: Brossard:
- Who is Lee Miller? How does knowing about her, or knowing what she looked like change your interpretation of the poem?
- Describe the form of this poem. What is the most important formal "unit" in it? The line? The page? Something else?
- Related question: describe the use of repetition in this poem. How do the repeated items develop and change as the poem progresses?
Wah:
- Describe the relationship between the images and the text. Who is/are the speaker/s? - What kind of tone do these poems have? What other texts would you compare them to? What cultural or literary sources do you think this language comes from?
- Read this short blog post by the poet Gary Barwin and respond: Barwin suggests "a new 'translation' of Wah's book in light of the new understanding, the changed relationship with Native history," the possibility that "a Native writer will write a book 'transcreating' images from non-Native imagery" or "non-First Nations' writers ... rewrit[ing] the book using non-First Nations pictograms." What do you think?
Respondent: Rivka, Kiley, ANDREA
8 (Oct. 27) Expressionisms (PEPP/Lion def.) (cf: Literary Encl article )
Munch via Literary Encylopedia, "The Scream" (Norway, 1893)
8A, Part One: German Expressionism
Rilke,
1904
Rainer Maria Rilke & intro (LION) (1875-1926)
in PM1 (2 selections)
PM1: pp.263-265; Lasker-Schuller, "To the Barbarian" (p.
270), Benn & Trakl (pp. 277-285)
In class we will focus on Rilke, Duino Elegy #1; see notes by Bernstein and Perloff (just
the beg. of the Perloff essay)
Extensions (optonal): RILKE: "Duino
Elegies" (bilingual, multiple translations); Rilke
in German; "Letter
to a Young Poet," "Torso
of an Archaic Apollo"
RESPONDENT: LANDON
Elsa
Lasker-Schuller
Some related images: Edvard Munch, "The
Scream" (1893), "Anxiety"
Optional: art background: Paul Vogt and Ita Heinze-Greenberg. "Expressionism." Grove Art Online.•
•Pick your favorite and least favorite poems (from the course) since
the last time you made such a list. Give reasons for your selection.
•Are these poets -- the ones assigned for this unit -- more expressive than the other poets,
or is that the approach to expression is different? What does
each poem "express"?
•Expressionism is sometimes understood in terms of depth
rather than surface; yet Rilke might be said to be depthless.
Discuss the surface/depth distinction in terms of the poems.
•Pick two poems and give a brief summary of their content.
How is this summary different from the poem?
Wreading: Reverse the order of the poems, line for line or run
the whole poem backword. Next: don't reverse but scramble. Comment
on result.
Try one of the translation experiments or try to do your own
word-for-word translation.
For those who know German: try translating a poem.
8B, Part 2:Antonin
Artaud, Federico García
Lorca
Artaud via LiteraryEnc
____in PM1&2
Artaud
sound files at UBU
Exensions: "To Have Done with the Judgement of God"
Lorca in PM1 (note: "Ode
for Walt Whitman" in Spanish; a web selection of Lorca
poems in Spanish)
Extensions: Lorca on "The
Theory and Function of the Duende" (c. 1933)
:Lorca tr.
by Paul Blackburn (bilingual)
RESPONDENTS TO LORCA: Callie, Marion
•Pick a poem of each poet give a brief summary of its content,
taking into account the way the form suggests content in these
works. In other words, treat the form and style as part of the "content" for
the purpose of answering this question.
Wreading: Lexical translation: Take a poem in a foreign language
-- "Ode for Walt Whitman" -- that you can pronounce but not necessarily
understand and translate it word for word with the help of a
bilingual dictionary. (Rewrite to suit?).
9. (Nov. 3) Mother Russia, Father USSR: Russian Poetry 2 (in/around/after Futurism)
Class Extenstion: Arkaadi Dragomoschenko visit at 6pm in KWH.
Dragomoshchenko: wiki
Dragomoshchenko in 99 Poets/1999
PIP bio and tr. by Genya Turovskaya
from Description, tr. Lyn Hejinian and Elena Balashova (Sun & Moon Press,1990)
from Dust
on PennSound
Respondent: Lauren
*
•Osip Mandelstam (Gale) & Acmeism
Mandelstam in PM1: pp. 390-397; Four Mandelstam poems: English (Penn
only (Russian); 2 poems tr. Yankelvitch/High (read note on poems too); "Ode to Stalin" (optional: Clarence Brown on this poem via JSTOR)
"Acmeist Manifesto" (JSTOR) (1917) (PEPP & Literary Encl) on Acmeism)
Optional reading: "Conversation about Dante"; also: "Octaves," Cigale tr.; Kline
Mandelstam audio
Respondent: Rivka
•Marina Tsvetayeva in Literary Encl & in PM1
•Anna Akhmatova in PM1; Akmatova audio; Akhmatova@RussianPoetrey.net
•Danill Kharmes & Literary Enc (1905-1942): Intro/CB, Realpoetik, from The Blue Notebook, Alex Cigale's tr., poems, "31 plays," another site
RESPONDENT: JC WILT
•Do you see a common approach in Mandelsatam, Tsvetayeva, and Akhmatova? The work is often though of in terms of fate or politics, but how about the form? How does this work relate to Russian Futurism and to the French ("Symbolist") poets you've read so far? Does the work relate to Dada, surrealism, or expressionism? Is it more radical or conservative (and what crtieria elicit for these characterizations)? Mandelstam addresses this in his Acmeist Manifesto: how do these poems reflect the views in that manifesto or how does he distinguish the work from Symbolism and Futurism? Is it significant that Mandelstam is Jewish?
•Is Kharmes comic, ironic, tragic, mystical?
•Dragomochenko is a contemporary poet, but do you see connections to the earlier Russian poets, for this week or the Futurists? How would you describe his sensibility
•Compose one question for the seminar, based on the reading.
Wreading:
Recombine or reorder the lines within a Dragomochenko poem
Recast one of the modernist Russian poems into something that refers to your own life.
For those who know Russian: try translating a poem.
10. (Nov. 10) Our America
José Marti
Introduction
by Ernesto Grosman (from 99 Poets/1999)
The Americas -- Wikepdedia; short poet bios
José Marti (Cuba), "Our
America"
Rubén Dario (Nicaragua) (Félix
Rubén
García
Sarmiento, 1867-1916): "To Roosevelt"; poem in Spanish (PM1); poems in
Spanish
Vicente Huidobro (Chile)
(note in two places in PM1):
Spanish: "Ars
Poetica," "Altazor"; more here; another site
César
Vallejo (Peru) (PM1), from Triilce [Trilce in Spanish], [other poems
in Spanish] (also see Lit Ency)
Respondent: Henry
Nicolàs Guillén (Cuba) (PM1) (Lit encly bio); excerpts The Daily Daily; poems
in Spanish;"Sensemaya" wiki comment; & in Spanish Respondent: REBECCA Borison
Pablo
Neruda [Neftalí Ricardo
Reyes Basoalto] (Chile) (PM1); also "Ode
with a Lament"; optional: poems
in Spanish; "Explaining
a Few Things" (bilingual) respondent to Neruda: Callie Ward
Maria Sabina (Mexico) (PM1 & PM2); Henry
Munn on Sabina
Cecilia Vicuna (Chile/US)
(PM2)
Further (optional) Reading:
Subcommander Marcos et al, ch. 14, ppFourth Declaration Lacandon Jungle, 78ff.
Roberto Tejada, In Relation: The Poetics and Politics of Cuba's Generation-80
Oliverio
Girondo
•Discuss Marti's "Our America" in the context of these
poems
•Does it make a difference that these poems were written in
Latin America; what would happen to the poems if you thought they were
written by a European of North American?
•Discuss the use of myths and other "fourth world" features in these poems (eg relation to inidigenous cultures, cultures that do not use writing systems, non-"Western" cultures).
• Pick your favorite and least favorite poem of the poets
assigned. What is the reason for your selection (use Profiler)?
•Compose one question for the seminar, based on the reading.
Wreading:
•Try any of the translation exercises: lexical or homophonic
if you don't know Spanish & if you do know Spanish, do a translation.
•Eliminate all personal pronouns or self-reference in a
poem.
•Write a version of one of these poems translated into
a contemporary social/historical situation
Recommended:
Tues., Nov. 16 at 6pm: Susan Bee at Kelly Writers House: talk on paintings and artist's books.
11. (Nov. 17)
11A, Part One: A Few Brazillian Poets
Carlos
Drummond de Andrade in PM1, "The Dirty Hand" (pp.
657-58)
_____, "In
the Middle of the Way"
_____, "In
the Kingdom of Poetry" or at PEPC
_____, "The
Bomb"
Response: Kiley
Haroldo de Campos in PM2
____ "Circulado," with music by Caetano Veloso (alt.
file in protected folder) & Veloso on this song (NOTE: the format is prose for original and translation).
______Three
concrete poems at UBU
___"Galaxias"
Décio
Pignatari, Bebe Coca-Cola; see also Régis
Régis Bonvicino, "Blue
Tile", PennSound
audio with bilingual texts: #s4 (Talvez), 7 (Me Transformo),
14 (Where), and 16 (Blue) (for texts: scroll down or use searchi as selected poems in English, Sky Elclipse, are all in one long html file here; or you might just want to look through this book) respondent: Callie
João Cabral de Melo Neto (1920-1999): Three
poems;
Paulo Leminksi: untitled
poem
Extensions (optional):
Josely Vianna Baptista, one
poem from 99 Poets/1999
Carlos Drummond de Andrade in PM1 (remainder); also three poems (bilingual)
Statements on Brazilian poetry from 99 Poets/1999 by de
Campos and Bonvicino
De Campos: Selection of Poems; Charles
Bernstein on de Campos, Roland Greene on
de Campos; Galáxias
site. Sound
file: Calcas
Cor de Abobora
Marjorie Perloff, "Concrete Prose": Haroldo de Campos's Galáxias and After
Mary Ellen Solt on
Brazillian Concrete Poetry
Oswald de Andrade:
my intro
"Manifesto da Poesia Pau-Brazil" (Brazil Wood Manifesto) (1924)
Anthropophagite
Manifesto ("Manifesto Antropófago") (1928) anothter
tr; also Mary
Ann Caws tr.; Leslie Bary's tr with full glosses (JSTOR)
Haroldo de Campos of Anthropophagy: JSTOR
Prescursor: Sousandrade (1832-1902"Wall Street Massacre" with notes by De Campos bros.: JSTOR
*
Caetano Veloso: a few songs ( restricted access)
Jorge de Lima in PM1
*
•Write in some detail about two or three poems. Detail any literary
"devices" used (see Profiler).
Deformation: Use the "Meaning
Eater" engine to deform the text of
a poem. Use a sound editor to scramble, resound a sound file
of a poem.
11B, Part Two: Negritude: Senghour, Césaire,
Damas
Césaire (bio/interview via Gale)
PM1, pp.559-581, 736, 751, and PM2 p. 73-4
Five poems from Soleil cou coupé (1948)
RESPONDENTS to Césaire: MOLLY, MARION
Extensions (optional): interview; listen to Clayton
Eshleman read his Césaire translation; Césaire
in French
•Pick your favorite and least favorite poems since the
last time you made such a list. Give reasons for your selection.Use
profiler.
•Contrast the poems read today with the poems from the
past two recent classes -- Surrealism and Lorca/Artaud, allowing
the strong connection between the two.
•Imagine Damas's "SOS" was written but a white women from
the midwest. Would that change the meaning of the poem?
•Compose one question for the seminar, based on the reading.
Wreading:
•If you know any French, try a bit of tranlsation of Césaire
•Negation/Opposites: Negate every phrase or sentence in
the poem or in some way substitute opposite words for selected
words in the source text: "I went to the beach" becomes "I went
to the office"; "I got up" becomes "She sat down"; "I will" become "I
will not"; etc. As an alternative, take a poem and change what
it says line for line or phrase for phrase; not opposite, just
different.
12. (Nov. 24) Dialects
12A, Part
One: Macdiarmid and Bunting
Hugh MacDiarmid (via Gale) (1892- 1978) & Synthetic Scots
MacDiarmid: info
on painting here
MacDiarmid: Selection and note in PM1 and poem in PM2; then
go to selected
poems for "Watergaw" listen to audio (psswd
needed) or poem/text at
Poetry Archive ; then for Drunk
Man Looks at Thistle, follow
first 100 lines with audio at PennSound; which also has audio for "British Leftish
Poetry 1930-40," "The Kind of Poetry I Want," and "The Glass
of Pure Water" (in PM2).
Full text of MacDiarmid at LION.
Repondent: Henry
*
Basil Bunting (via Gale)
Basil Bunting in
PM1: Opening lines of Briggflats & audio; audio at PennSound. Extensions:
full text of the poem is available on LION (library/e-resources;
quick search: "Bunting Briggflatts". Also: Poetry
Archive has an excerpt from part 1, text and streaming-only
audio.
Respondent: REBECCA Borison
Extensions: MacDiarmid, "Revolutionary
Art of the Future"; Bio
and additional audio (Penn only)
Extensions (optional): Tom Leonard at PennSound: "Unrelated Incidents" "Glasgow Poems," and comment
Extensions: David Jones
•Discuss the audio recording: how does it compare to the
printed text?
•What are the political implications of MacDiarmid's forms?
•MacDiarmid calls his language in "Drunk Man" "synthetic"
dialect. What does he mean by "synthetic"?
Wreading:
Convert one of the poems from the syllabus into your local dialect
Write a standard English translation of one of dialect poems
12B, Part Two Dialectic of Dialect:
Jamiaca
This set of readings extends from the MacDiarmid,
so feel free to go back and forth between MacDiarmid and Bunting
(who were friends and contemporaries) and Bennett and Smith and
McCaffery.
Louise
Bennett, "Bans
O' Killing" and "Colonization in Reverse"; audio
of "Colinization" (extensions: "Dutty Tough" audio). Litalive Bennett page.
Response: Kiley
Michael Smith, "It
a Come" and " Mi
C-Yaan Believe It" (youtube audio) (short bio) (see also poems here & another youtube). (Extensions/optional: Linton Kwesi Johnson: Sonny's Lettah (text) & Fite Dem Back (text)
Steve McCaffery, "The Kommunist Manifesto or Wot We Wukkers
Want": MP3 & TEXT.
This is a translation into Yorkshire dialect of Marx & Engels' Communist
Manifesto
•Discuss the formal, stylistic, sonic, prosodic, ideological,
nationalistic, and political implications of these works.
•(Bennett:) Is humor an appropriate ingredient for serious
poetry? Some might say that Bennett is a popular peformer not a significant poet. Does it make sense to include her on this sylabus, along with another Caribeean poet of polymathic range such as Césaire?
•Is this minor literature (in Deleuze and Guattari's sense)?
(For those who may know their book on this subject.)
•Compare MacDiarmid and Bunting, or Bunting and Smith
•Listening to additional cuts of Smith: what is the connection
between his "dub poetry" and
Reggae, or, to ask this another way, what is the relation of
the poems to the songs?
Wreading:
Use the dialect engine to
translate poems from the syllabus into one or several "dialects".
Or do this just by the accent you give in reading the work out
loud.
Create standard English versions of some of these poems.
Further readings/listenings: Kamu Brathwaite
13. (Dec. 1)
13A, Part One: Exile: Turning without Return
Paul
Celan (& Gale bio): PM2
(three entries) & "Todesfuge" audio
(and other poems) & (commentary); Sprachglitter (optional: commentary)
[Unrestricted
source for Celan sound files and poems]
Charles Bernstein, "Celan's
Folds and Veils" (from Texutual Practice 18:2,
2004) on
"Todtnuaberg"
Extensions (optional):|
Celan, "The Medidian" (1960), tr. R. Waldrop (note the book) (supplemental: outakes from the speech) & excerpts from the drafts. Respondent: Aaron, Lauren
Joris on Celan
Jabes, Adonis, Darwish, in PM2
Adonis & Darwish in 99 Poets
Abdelwahab
Meddeb in 99 Poets
Extensions/futher reading (optional): iles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, from Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature (pdf)
•How do these poets respond to exile? What's poetry got
to do with it?
•What is Celan's relation to his "native" language
or "mother tongue" and
his other languages? In what way is Celan's relation to German
expressed in his work
•How does the sound-shape of "Todesfugue" relate
to its meaning?
•Is my Celan essay over-reading?
•Use the poem profiler on Celan
•Compose one question for the seminar, based on the reading.
Wreading:
Try some homophonic translations of "Todesfugue"
Re-order "Todesfugue": lines in reverse direction; reverse
direction of the words. Erase half the words to create another
poem.
Homolinguistic translation: Take a poem and translate
it "English
to English" by substituting word for word, phrase for
phrase, line for line, or "free" translation as response to
each phrase or sentence.
13B. Part Two: Prose of Identities:
Case Studies
Samuel Beckett in Literary Encl in PM2 & on-line or "Imagination,
Dead, Imagine" (Penn only) or public
site
Respondent: ANDREA
Monique Wittig,
Wittig
("Le Corps Lesbien") in French original
Dubravka Djuric, "Post-Communist
Poetry" from 99 Poets/1999
___, "Disordering" & other
poems (translationa follows original)
[Note Brossard would otherwise be here!]
RESPONDENT: REBECCA LEVINE
•Use the Poem Profiler to describe the mood, psychological
state, and other features of several poems.
Wreading: Cut-ups: take lines from these poems for this week
and re-order them into a new poem. Larger project: do a cut-up
from all the poems we have read so far
Monday, Dec. 6 at 6 at KWH: POETRY in 1960 - A SYMPOSIUM
14. (Dec. 8): Last Class
14A, Part One: Concrete
and Visual Poetry
PM2: pp.304-316
Concrete
and Visual Poetry selection
Tom Phillips (PM2); see also Tom Phillips, Humament
home page
Repondent: Henry
14B, Part Two: Digital
Cayley and Rosenberg in PM2
Rosenberg in Poetry after 1975 / boundary 2
On Visual Poetry: Brows; pick and commonet on your favorites
On Digital Browse
through the list, but start with Andrews's "On Lionel Kearns",
Stefans's "Dreamlive, Chang's "Dakota",
bp Nichol's early computer poems, and then Glazier's"Territorio
Libre"
Respondent: Lauren
•What are the distinctive
•Compose one question for the seminar, based on the reading.
Wreading: Make your own digital poems or create a blueprint/plan for a
digital poem you would like to make
Note: LAST CLASS
As a final post, please give your response to the course, focussed primarily on the poetry and poetics, but also the class and listserve discussion of the poetry and poetics, the web-based syllabus, PennSound, and the wreading experiments. Chart changes in your thinking about poetry and poetics from before the class began to now. Thinking back on
all the poems read and heard, discuss/revisit some of the work that stays with you the most. If you were to change any part of the syllabus, what would you change? One final question (after Robert Duncan) and specifically
in respect to the focus of this course: What don't you know?
What would you like to pursue?
All material for this class should be handed in by the Sunday following the last class. If you plan on submitting work after that time, please email; extensions are possible. For those who might like to do supplemental work for the class: by all means, expand on subjects already approached or pursue any of the "extensions."NOTE: supplemental work is not required for the course.
Extensions: Alan Golding on PM
PM launch reading at KWH on PennSound
Bonus Track One:
Fernando Pessoa: "Autopsicografia"
Bonus Track Two: Italian poetry modern and contemporary
Eugenio Montale, Guiseppe Ungaretti in PM1
Amelia Roselli in PM2
Elio Pagliarani at PennSound
Il Novissimi, Cesare Pavasse, Eduardo Sanguineti, Antonio
Porta, Adriano Spatola, Luigi Ballerini, Andrea Zonzotto, Milli
Graffi, Emilio Villa, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Milo de Angelis,
Gabriele D'Annunzio, Giulia Niccolai, Antonia Pozzi, Nanni Cagnone
Bibliography
Bonus Track Three: UK Now and Then
Auden; Sitwell in PM1
Raworth, O'Sullivan, Prynne in PM2
O'Sullivan, "Red
Shift" in 99 Poets and audio
Veronica Forrest-Thomas, "Cordelia"
Further reading:
Auden, "Musee des Beaux Arts"
Auden, "In
Memory of W.B. Yeats"
Larkin, "This Be the Verse"
Dylan Thomas, sound files
Out of Everywhere: An Anthology of Contemporary Linguistically Innovative
Poetry by Women in North America & the UK, ed. Maggie O'Sullivan
Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry, ed. Keith
Tuma
Other: British and Irish Poetry since 1970, ed. Richard Caddel and
Peter Quartermain Bonus Track
Four: Vienna Group
PM2. pp/ 115-126
Jandl, "Scenes
from Real Life"
Jandl at Ubu
Bonus Track Five: Caribbean Poetry
Kamau Brathwaite
Derek Walcott
Louise Bennett
Claude McKay
Michael Smith
Eduardo Glissant
Malcolm de Chazal
Linton Kwezi Johnson
Bonus Track Six: Brecht & WeilBonus Track Seven: China
Chinese Poetry
2008 Visit
of Li Zhimin
PennSound page
Reading:
Li Zhimin -- KWH lecture on Chinese & Western poetry, published in Internationa; Literary Quarterly, 2010.
Li Zhimin -- a selection and
in Chinese
Mao Zedong (1893-1976), selected
poems
Xu Zhimo (1897-1931), Ji Xian (b. 1913), Gu Cheng (b. 1956): pdf
from Michelle Yeh anthology.
"Mity Poets" PM2 pp. 752-769, esp:
Bei
Dao (b. 1949), "The Answer" and Bei Dao in Jacket;
Haun Saussy on Bei Dao's "Huida/The Answer" and
Tiananmen Square
Mang Ke "Apeherd" (PM2)
Gu Cheng (in Yeh
pdf above)
Shu
Ting in PM2 and also her work in the Michelle Yeh anthology: pdf
here
Language/Original poets:
Yunte Huang, Intro;
Original
Manifesto;
Huang Fan (b. 1963), "Poetry's
New Shore,"
Che Qianzi (b. 1963), "Flower
of Two Persons" (1990);
Yi Cun (b. 1954), "A
Poet's Remark on a White Bird in Winter"
Yunte Hunag, from SHI
Ma
Lan, selection
Xu Bing: "Art for the People" & "New English Caligraphy" (Square word calligraphy), "Your Surname Please"
Xi Chuan and here
Yao Feng
•Mao is considered one of modern China's greatest
poets: how is his role as a major (and, to put it mildly, troubling)
political leader and revolutionary reflected in his poetry? What
role does poetry play in his political leadership? Is there a
conflict between being a lyric poet and Mao's political ideology
and actions.
•Discuss Huang's approach to translation, taking up our
discussion of translation in the second class.
•Compare the "Misty," "Language/Original
Poets," and Li Zhimin. Do a close reading of a poem from
each group, perhaps using the poem profiler. Discuss the politics
of poetic form in the poems (how the chosen forms reflect political
or social perspectives).
•Li Zhimin will be talking about the influence of Western
poetry on modern Chinese poetry. One example (somewhat negative
in his view) is Xu Zhimo's idealization of Cambridge Uniiveristy,
But the influence is reflected in the selection of contemporary
poets. What qualities in these poems reflect a distinctly Western
and also a distinctly non-Western approach to poetry?
Wreading:
Write imitations of a couple of the poems in this week's reading.
In other words, change the subject or place but write a poem
in a manner as close to the "original" as possible.
For those of you who know any Chinese at all: do new translations
of the poems for which the Chinese is provided
MISC
Djuna Barnes, Book of Repulsive Women (Sun & Moon)
Class Visitors 2005:Christian Bok (Canada) (Last Class): Class Visit and Studio 111 recording.
Class will meet in the Kelly Writers House for reading and return to Studio 111 for interview
After the class, there will be a reception and class party in the Kelly Writers House (4:30 to 6)
Eunoia and audio of Eunoia
Christian Bok: sound poems at UBU. Note Bok at KWH April 6 at 3pm
For the Studio 111 recording, about half the class will be selected to ask questions as part of the recoding session. Submit proposed questions over the blog by Saturday at the lastest and I will select the group for the recording Caroline Bergvall (UK/Europe): reading and Studio 111 recording sessions
Caroline Bergvall's "About Face" and "Via" (at PennSound)
___, Ambient Fish (digital poem, see class #24)
___, Eclat (dip in and out, as much as time allows)
Recommended (optional):
Perloff on Bergvall and Bok
For the Studio 111 recording, about half the class will be selected to ask questions as part of the recoding session. Submit proposed questions over the blog by Saturday at the latest and I will select the group for the recording. For your response: comment on the work and also suggest several questions.
Wreading: "No wave." Retype the target work, without making any changes. Proofread for accuracy. Reflect on the process. The reformat the work with differnet typographic and visual elements.Leevi Lehto visit (Finland)
Note: Class will meet in the Kelly Writers House Art Cafe
Lehto's talk, anthology, and photos of Penn visit
Lehto's short anthology of Finnish poetry..
Introduction to Lehto's work
Lehto's reading at KWH on 2/23/05
Paavo Haavikko in PM2
Background reading (optional):
Leevi Lehto author page
Kalevala (first written version of national "oral"/"folk" epic, 1835) Kalevala in English
Further reading (optional): Scandanavian Poets
Edith Södergran in PM1
Inger Christensen, Gunnar Ekelöff in PM2
Gunnar Björling, tr, Fredrik Herzberg (from boundary 2)
boundary 2 special Swedish supplement: Volume 29, Number 1, Spring 2002 (via Project Muse), includes Jesper Svenbro, Stig Larsson, Ann Jäderlund, Jörgen Gassilewski, Helena Eriksson, Lars Mikae Raattamaa
Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl, "The importance of destroying a language (of one’s own)"
Lehto, "Plurifying the Language of the Trite"
SEE OCT. Update in English 262 for Hallberg/Gasselewski visit.
Wreading:
Try a variant of these three translation exercises using the "Lost in Translation" "Babel" engine, or other web-based translations engines, such as Babelfish and Free Translation.com.
Google Poem: construct a poem using Leevi Lehto's engine (use the patterns feature)._______________________________________
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