Module Identifier ENM5220  
Module Title WRITING POETRY 1: RHYMES AND REASONS  
Academic Year 2001/2002  
Co-ordinator Mr Clive Meachen  
Semester Semester 1  
Other staff Mr Clive Meachen  
Course delivery Seminar   2 hours per week  
Assessment Case study   Students will complete a portfolio containing work in three of the modes discussed. This will contain commentary of a critical/theoretical nature on the chosen modes, and specific annotation of the work included. 5,000 words.    

Content


1. Poetry as Self-expression


   How does a poem differ from a diary or a letter to a lover? How useful is the confessional mode? What happens when a   
   pesonal voice enters the realm of language? Texts to be considered include Sylvia Plath's "Daddy", and Allen Ginsberg's
   "Howl", together with a characteristic range of critical responses to their practice. Students will present a brief analysis of their
   own practice.


2. Poetry as a Machine Made of Words


   This component stresses an opposite approach to that suggested in the previous component. The title is taken from
   W C Williams' introduction to "The Wedge", which provides a core text, together with Williams' "The Red Wheel-barrow".
   The Modernist stress on the 'self-sufficient art object' will be looked at in some detail, using commentary and criticism by
   Peter Quatermain and Stephen Friedman. Students will be asked to consider how their own practice endorses or departs from
   this proposition on the nature of the poem.


3. Poetry and Traditions


   T S Elliot and the New Critics provide the framework here, together with the relatively recent spate of writing which has attacked
   their assumptions. Examples from Black writing, Native American writing, and Language poetry will be used to provide examples
   of the need to widen the sense of tradition. Susan Howe's "The Birth-Mark" will be used as a central alternative critical text.
   Students will be asked to reflect on their own traditions and the question of national traditions in poetry.


4. Poetry and Peformance


   How should a poem be read to an audience? Are certain kinds of poetry unsuitable for a live audience?   What are the
   strengths and weaknesses of a poetry specifically designed to be performed rather than to be read? Students will read their own
   poetry and will receive help in the preparation of their reading.


5. The Single Poem, the Collected Book


   How to compile a selection and how to order it, together with the idea that putting things into an order can alter and adjust the
   meaning of individual poems, (Hugh Kenner's essay on Yeates provides a useful perspective on this). Susan Howe's "The
   Birth-Mark" offers a radical critique of publishing and this will be laid alongside examples drawn from both the mainstream and
   alternative presses.

Brief description


Each component of the module is linked to fundamental activities in the creation of a poem. Examples are provided of how a selected range of poets have dealt with these issues, but what is stressed in the choice of these examples is the diversity of practice available to us in the poetic record. Each component sets specific tasks while remaining sensitive to the individual knowledge and capacities of the student. A theoretical framework is provided for each component. The aim is to familiarise the student with the six basic activities of poetic practice. There is accumulative logic in the order of tasks on display, moving from the most common assumptions about the writing of poetry to wider and more sophisticated questions about its practice.