English 270
Graduate Poetry Workshop


Requirements: Regular attendance; participation as delineated on the slightly insane schedule below; and 3 required wiki posts and 3 additional wiki posts in the topic area of your choice. Please bring the appropriate number of copies of your work to class the week before your work will be discussed.

Wiki: The wiki is an experiment in cross-continental conversation. We will be conversing on it with those enrolled in a graduate seminar at Temple University taught by Jena Osman. The url is http://hopon.pbwiki.com. Please post your study plan responses and your interview questions on the wiki. And then three other posts of any sort. Please post at least two of these three before October 16. You are highly encouraged, but not required, to do more than three posts here and to indulge in some friendly relational aesthetic talk. You are highly encouraged, but not required, to post your other responses.

Starting September 11… Once during the semester, each of you will be interviewed by another of you. This interview will be one half hour long. The interviewer should prepare for the interview by reading a decent chunk of work by the poet. Poet and interviewer should meet before the class and script the interview. Together they should come up with three pieces or parts of pieces to focus on in the interview. Interviewer will prepare three questions, one for each piece to be read. Please post interview questions on the wiki (poet may post answers also but this is not required).


August 28
introduction
Poets one, two, and three will come to class with 5-10 pages of work for the September 4th workshop.

module #1 STUDY PROJECT
Each respondent will present a course of study of some sort to the author. This course of study could be books, music, art, websites, etc. It should be some sort of cultural study (please avoid self-improvement suggestions). Each plan should probably have around six items on it. Although a few more might be necessary. Each respondent should write a few sentences about each suggestion and why they thought the author should study it. The goal here is to tell the author something about their work that they might not know or might not yet recognize. Please post on the wiki.


September 4
Poet one will be educated by poet four and five.
Poet two will be educated by poet five and six.
Poet three will be educated by poet six and seven.

Poets four, five, and six should bring to class with 5-10 pages of work for the September 11th workshop.


September 11
Poet four will be educated by poet seven and eight.
Poet five will be educated by poet eight and nine.
Poet six will be educated by poet nine and ten.

Poet one will be interviewed by poet two.

Poets seven, eight, and nine should bring to class with 5-10 pages of work for the September 18th workshop.


September 18
Poet seven will be educated by poet ten and eleven.
Poet eight will be educated by poet eleven and twelve.
Poet nine will be educated by poet twelve and one.

Poet two will be interviewed by poet three.

Poets ten, eleven, and twelve should bring to class with 5-10 pages of work for the September 11th workshop.


September 25
Poet ten will be educated by poet one and two.
Poet eleven will be educated by poet two and three.
Poet twelve will be educated by poet three and four.

Poet three will be interviewed by poet four.

Poets one, two, and three should bring to class with 5-15 pages of provocative work for the October 9 workshop.


module #2: DEBATES
As it matters, poetry provokes debate. For instance, the discussion about Michael Magee’s “Their Guys, Their Asian Glittering Guys, Are Gay” at www.saidwhatwesaid.com. As respondent, discuss the sorts of arguments that could be made for and against the poet’s work. Please realize that I am asking you to describe both sides of various arguments. I am not asking you to complain about the poets work and I am not asking for evaluations about whether the work is bad or good.

October 2
No class.

October 9
Poet one’s work will be debated by poet six and seven.
Poet two’s work will be debated by poet seven and eight..
Poet three’s work will be debated by poet eight and nine.

Poet four will be interviewed by poet five.

Poets four, five, and six should bring to class with 5-15 pages of provocative work for the October 16 workshop.


October 16
Poet four’s work will be debated by poet nine and ten.
Poet five’s work will be debated by poet ten and eleven.
Poet six’s work will be debated by poet eleven and twelve.

Poet five will be interviewed by poet six.

Poets seven, eight, and nine should bring to class with 5-15 pages of provocative work for the October 23 workshop.

At least two wiki posts should be done by this point.

October 23
Poet seven’s work will be debated by poet twelve and one.
Poet eight’s work will be debated by poet one and two.
Poet nine’s work will be debated by poet two and three.

Poet six will be interviewed by poet seven.

Poets ten, eleven, and twelve should bring to class with 5-15 pages of provocative work for the October 30 workshop.


October 30
Poet ten’s work will be debated by poet three and four.
Poet eleven’s work will be debated by poet four and five.
Poet twelve’s work will be debated by poet five and six.

Poet seven will be interviewed by poet eight.

Poets one, two, and three should bring to class some work for the November 6 workshop.


module #3: DETOURN
See Guy Debord and Gil J Wolman’s “A User’s Guide to Détournement,” www.bopsecrets.org/SI/detourn.htm. Détournement gets used loosely and could refer to many sorts of appropriation. For this module though, a more specific example would be Ben Friedlander’s Simulcast: Four Experiments in Criticism (available on reserve and at the Mills bookstore). Take some criticism as your source text and rewrite it so it is about the poet.

November 6
Poet one will receive détournements from poets seven and eight.
Poet two will receive détournements from poets eight and nine.
Poet three will receive détournements from poets nine and ten.

Poet eight will be interviewed by poet nine.

Poets four, five, and six should bring some work for the November 13 workshop.


November 13
Poet four will receive détournements from poets ten and eleven.
Poet five will receive détournements from poets eleven and twelve.
Poet six will receive détournements from poets twelve and one.

Poet nine will be interviewed by poet ten.

Poets seven, eight, and nine should bring some work for the November 20 workshop.


November 20
Poet seven will receive détournements from poets one and two.
Poet eight will receive détournements from poets two and three.
Poet nine will receive détournements from poets three and four.

Poet ten will be interviewed by poet eleven.

Poets ten, eleven, and twelve should bring some work for the December 4 workshop.


November 27, thanksgiving


December 4
Poet ten will receive détournements from poets four and five.
Poet eleven will receive détournements from poets five and six.
Poet twelve will receive détournements from poets six and seven.

Poet eleven will be interviewed by poet twelve.