Adventures with Poetry

Wedi cwblhau'r modiwl dylai'r myfyrwyr fedru:

1. 1. Demonstrate knowledge of some significant forms and conventions of poetic writing in English.
2. 2. Compose poetry in a range of forms, using contemporary diction and invoking a contemporary context.
3. 3. Write within constraints (either given or devised).
4. 4. Demonstrate knowledge of the ways i which traditional forms impact on contemporary approaches.
5. 5. Develop a self-reflexive awareness of their own writing practice.
6. 6. Make constructive critical responses to their own and other students’ writing, and engage in appropriate revisions of their own work.

The module explores the more playful aspects of poetic form, including OulLiPo, montage, digital and multi-media poetry. Its focus is on looking at form and the poetic constraints used over a wide-range of contemporary poetry. In addition to the seminars/workshops there will be a found poetry tour, and students will be encouraged to engage with a range of poetic practices by attending readings.

This module is designed to build on the foundational work of the first year core Introduction to Poetry, developing a more advanced technical skills base and introducing students to the imaginative ways in which poetic form is used by contemporary poets.

Teaching will be delivered through weekly two-hour workshops in which students will discuss each other’s written work with their tutor, and have an introduction to the next topic through provided example texts and discussion.

Outline of seminar topics: Session 1: Introduction to module.

Session 2: Syllabic forms. Students will explore traditions in syllabic poetry from, discussing, in more depth, the Japanese haiku/senryu and tanka. Group Exercise: producing a tanka.

Session 3: An Introduction to concrete poems, considering form as a visual tool, and discussing the ways in which form and subject are in dialogue. Exercise: The students will choose a visual shape and attempt to write a poem that marries subject and shape.

Session 4: Workshop and reflection exercises on form and production.

Session 5: OuLiPo and Aleatoric (chance) poetry, looking at alternative methods of poetic constraint. Students will be asked to try out a selection of these constraints and discuss their experience of using such chance/constraints on their creativity.

Session 6: Workshop and reflection exercises on form and production.

Session 7: Found poems. This session will pivot around a discussion on the ways in which we are surrounded by textual material in all aspects of our lives; and the usefulness of found materials in the production of poems. Students will be introduced to techniques to produce poems out of other texts such as erasure, cut-up, fold-in and montage.

Session 8: Workshop and reflection, exercises on form and production.

Session 9: Media poetry. Students will explore twitter, text and Instagram poems in terms of writing and production constraints. They will also explore social media as a source of materials that capture a moment in time. They will discuss the pros and cons of instant publishing, single author work and collaborative work, and the relationship between the global and the poet.

Session 10. Workshop and reflection. This is an opportunity for the students to review the material covered throughout the module and to create their own formal constraints to write a poem, supported by their tutor.

Mae'r modiwl hwn yn cydymffurfio a FfCChC Lefel 5