week 9b - Nov. 11-14 - introduction to three "New York Poets"

• David Lehman, excerpt from The Last Avant-Garde
• John Asbhery profile
• John Ashbery, interview
• John Ashbery, "The Instruction Manual"
• paper option #12 Ashbery's "The Instruction Manual" implicitly is critical of what might be called "the ideology of first-hand experience." In this paper, describe that position and then state your position on what you think is Ashbery's position. To what extent are you persuaded by Ashbery's (mostly counter-intuitive) attitude toward experience?
• Frank O'Hara, biographical profile
• on O'Hara's "Personism" manifesto
• Frank O'Hara's energy per Ron Silliman
• Frank O'Hara, "The Day Lady Died"
• Frank O'Hara, "Why I am Not a Painter"
• Billie Holiday - brief biography
• John Yau, "830 Fireplace Road"
• O'Hara, "Like"
• O'Hara, "At the Old Place"
• O'Hara per Galway Kinnell in a review essay of 1958
• ut pictura poesis
• Ted Berrigan, sonnet XV from The Sonnets
• Ted Berrigan's poem "3 Pages"
• Ted Berrigan's "3 Pages"
• Kenneth Koch, "Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams" (1962)
• Kenneth Koch, "Mending Sump" (1960)
• audio: Al Filreis on three major categories of "New York Poets" verse: (1) anti-narrative, (2) non-narrative, and (3) pastiche or appropriation
• notes on Tom Phillips's A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel
• video: Al Filreis on the art book; on visual/textual/material appropriations; and on Tom Phillips' A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel
• "pastiche"
• Lytle Shaw, "The Confessions 2"
• Wallace Stevens, "The Snow Man" (Norton, p. 289)
• Lytle Shaw explains the connectoin between "The Confessions 2" and "The Snow Man"
• Lytle Shaw, "At the Old Place"
• Shawn Walker, "Birthday on a Bridge"
• Juliana Spahr, "IntroductionIntroductionIntroduction"
• Tom Devaney, "Fifty Lines for Al Filreis on his 50th Birthday" (March 2006)
• Tom Devaney, "Poem (for Al Filreis)"
• Tom Devaney, "Trying to Live as if It Were Morning"
• Tom Devaney reads "Trying to Live as if It Were Morning" (at the Writers House, Feb. 7, 2000)
  supplemental/optional readings:
• Kenneth Koch at the Writers House (1998)
• Lyle Shaw on O'Hara (Jacket magazine, 1999)
• Shawn Walker, poetry reading, recorded from a live webcast held on September 18, 1999 at the Kelly Writers House ()
• Ed Dorn's parody of Williams
• review of David Lehman's book, The Last Avant-Garde

week 10a - Nov. 15-18 - Williams one more time

• William Carlos Williams, "Portrait of a Lady": as the poem appeared in a 1920 issue of The Dial
• audio: Williams's "Portrait of a Lady," read by Shawn Walker
• video: Al Filreis and Shawn Walker on "Portrait of a Lady"
• The pure products of America / go crazy" or "To Elsie"
• audio: Williams reading "To Elsie" in 1958
• video: Williams reading "To Elsie" (with visual dramatization) followed by a commentary on the poem by Allen Ginsberg
• audio: Al Filreis on Williams' attraction to the new "mixed" American culture in "To Elsie" (mp3 4:04)
• Robert Creeley, "I Know a Man"
  supplemental/optional readings:
• James Clifford's introduction to The Predicament of Culture in which he interprets "To Elsie" in relation to contemporary cultural anthropology
• commentary on "the white trash" mentioned in "To Elsie" (W)
• recording of a live webcast symposium on "To Elsie" led by Al Filreis, Bob Perelman, Kristen Gallagher, and Shawn Walker with thirty far-flung virtual participants from the Kelly Writers House on July 8, 1999

• webcast: PhillyTalks, live webcast beginning at 6 PM, Monday, November 15, featuring poets Rachel Blau DuPlessis and Barrett Watten. A recording of the live webcast is available here. ()

week 10b - Nov. 18-21 - Ashbery and the non-narrative

• John Ashbery, "Some Trees"
• Steven Robinson's paraphrase of "Some Trees"
• Ashbery, "What Is Poetry"
• Juliana Spahr on how reading is taught in school
• interview with John Asbhery in which he mentions the poem "What Is Poetry" (1999)
• paper option #13 Write a paper that accomplishes just this: an explanation (or "translation" into your own plainest words) of Ashbery's "What Is Poetry"
• audio: Al Filreis on aspects of the poetry of Ashbery
• John Ashbery, "Hard Times"
• John Ashbery, "The One Thing That Can Save America"
• John Ashbery, interviewed by Al Filreis, on his anthologized poems and "The One Thing That Can Save America"
• John Ashbery, "The Grapevine"
• John Ashbery, "Crossroads in the Past"
• John Ashbery reads "Crossroad in the Past"
• John Ashbery, "Novelty Love Trot"
• Cid Corman, several recent poems
  supplemental/optional readings:
• student report on Ashbery's influence on four language poets
• recording of a conversation with John Ashbery conducted by Al Filreis, March 2002
• Gary Soto, "How Things Work"
• Gertrude Stein per John Ashbery from a 1957 review (W)
• Allen Ginsberg, "Is About" (1996)

• webcast - live from the Writers House, a discussion about Ashbery, non-narrative poetry, and the emergence of the postmodernism, 8 PM, Monday, November 22. [A recording of this webcast is available navigate 88v: schedule | key | home | PAPERs | video-audio index | m a i l the s t a f f | next chapter