{"id":41,"date":"2022-01-04T16:41:54","date_gmt":"2022-01-04T21:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/poetry-and-the-arts\/?page_id=41"},"modified":"2022-04-14T16:30:08","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T20:30:08","slug":"readings","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/poetry-and-the-arts\/readings\/","title":{"rendered":"Readings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Week 12<\/strong><\/p>\n

Readings are included in this packet.<\/a><\/p>\n

For Monday, please read four short, experimental essays: Eula Biss, \u201cThe Pain Scale\u201d; Brian Blanchfield, \u201cLocus Amoenus\u201d;\u00a0 Wayne Koestenbaum, \u201cThe Writer\u2019s Obligation\u201d; Lisa Robertson, \u201cTime in the Codex\u201d<\/p>\n

In each case, identify one aspect of the text (a particular moment, a larger strategy) that you consider poetic, and be prepared to explain why in class.<\/p>\n

Wednesday: TBD.<\/p>\n

Week 11<\/strong><\/p>\n

Readings are included in this packet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For Monday, we will read five poems that variously raise questions of poetry about and as architecture:\u00a0 Emily Dickinson, \u201cThe Props Assist the House\u201d; Ren\u00e9e Gladman, from Prose Architectures; Ben Jonson, \u201cTo Penshurst\u201d; Wallace Stevens, \u201cAnecdote of a Jar\u201d; and Rosemary Waldrop, \u201cA Serenade and Requiem.\u201d Also please read the excerpt from Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space<\/em>.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday we will be joined by V. Mitch McEwen<\/a> of the School of Architecture. Please read Audre Lorde’s “Coal” in preparation for an architectural-poetic workshop.<\/p>\n

Week 10<\/strong><\/p>\n

Readings are included in this packet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For Monday, we will read five poems by Lynne Sachs from her from her book Year by Year, for the years 1962, 1982, 1984, 1988, and 2006. There are also three films by\u00a0 Sachs to watch. Tip of My Tongue<\/a> is related to the poems; watch the whole if you can,\u00a0 but especially 1:03:20 to the end (you\u2019ll see a familiar face featured). Please also watch two short films, Starfish Aorta Colossus<\/a> (password: LS2021) and Girl Is Presence<\/a> (password: LS2021) and for the last, also have a look at the interview with Anne Lesley Selcer<\/a> (especially 20:17 to 23:58).<\/p>\n

For Wednesday, we’ll take a day to think about the definitions of poetry that have accumulated over the semester, and to add some to our repertoire. Our one poem\u2014something of a test case for the various theories\u2014will be Walt Whitman’s \u201cA Noiseless Patient Spider.\u201d Our definitions will be: \u201cLinguistics and Poetics,\u201d by Roman Jakobson; \u201cHow to Recognize a Poem When You See One,\u201d by Stanley Fish; \u201cBlackness and Poetry,\u201d by Fred Moten; and short accounts by John Stuart Mill, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Ezra Pound.<\/p>\n

Week 9<\/strong><\/p>\n

Readings are included in this packet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

No new readings for class on Monday; for Wednesday, we turn to film, and we will read Anne Carson, \u201cH and A Screenplay\u201d (you can read about the story of Heloise and Abelard here<\/a>), along with Frank O\u2019Hara, \u201cAve Maria.\u201d Plus: Maya Deren, Arthur Miller, Dylan Thomas, Parker Tyler, and Willard Maas, \u201cPoetry and the Film: A Symposium,\u201d and Viktor Shklovsky, \u201cPoetry and Prose in Cinema.\u201d<\/p>\n

Week 8<\/strong><\/p>\n

Readings are included in this packet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Monday we continue thinking about lyric and narrative, especially but not only sestinas, and we will read Elizabeth Bishop, \u201cSestina\u201d; Anton Chekhov, an excerpt from from his notebooks; Mark Strand, \u201cChekhov: A Sestina\u201d; and Robert Haas, \u201cA Story about the Body.\u201d Kirstin Valdez Quade<\/a> will join us.<\/p>\n

For Wednesday, on to dance!\u2014with some poems about dance, and also about gesture: and excerpt from Sir John Davies’ Orchestra; Emily Dickinson, \u201cI Cannot Dance upon My Toes\u201d; Terence Hayes, \u201cI Don\u2019t Know How to Hold My Body\u201d; James Merrill, \u201cCharles on Fire\u201d; Marianne Moore, \u201cArthur Mitchell\u201d; and Wallace Stevens, \u201cLife Is Motion.\u201d We’ll also read the great and strange Vil\u00e9m Flusser on gesture and affect.<\/p>\n

Week 7<\/strong><\/p>\n

Readings are included in this packet<\/a>, except where indicated below.<\/p>\n

Monday the first essay for the courses is due; see the instructions in the packet. We’ll also read Wallace Stevens, \u201cThe Idea of Order at Key West,\u201d and a poem that influenced it, William Wordsworth’s \u201cThe Solitary Reaper.\u201d These two poems will let us think about the category of lyric, and an excerpt from Northrop Frye’s The Theory of Genres<\/em> will give us some terms .<\/p>\n

Wednesday we turn toward narrative, poems as (or containing) stories. We’ll read five poems, Emily Dickinson, \u201cBecause I Would Not Stop for Death\u201d; Cathy Park Hong, \u201cOur Jim\u201d; John Keats, \u201cLa Belle Dame Sans Merci\u201d; Frank O\u2019Hara, \u201cThe Day Lady Died\u201d; and the traditional ballad, \u201cOh the Wind and the Rain\u201d (see also the recordings from week 3 below). Tzvetan Todorov’s essay “The Two Principles of Narrative” will help us answer the question, what is narrative, anyway?<\/p>\n

Week Six:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Readings are included in this packet<\/a>, except where indicated below.<\/p>\n

For Monday, we’ll talk about essay writing by way of one of the poems from our readings that we have so far missed discussing; you can vote here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The readings for Wednesday are set for us by out visitor, the playwright Nathan Davis<\/a>: the last scene of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and a short performance by Saul Williams, “Coded Language<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Week Five:<\/strong><\/p>\n

All readings are in this packet<\/a>, except where indicated below.<\/p>\n

For Monday, in addition to the exercise, read the excerpt from Hart Crane’s The Bridge<\/em> and have a look at a few of Walker Evans’ photographs of the Brooklyn Bridge (here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The readings for Wednesday are longer than usual, owing to the selection from Shakespeare’s Othello, so be sure to make time. Our emphasis will fall there, but the other, shorter poems offer some alternative versions of drama in poetry: reading aloud (Felicia Hemans’ “Casabianca,” which was a classic of classroom recitation, and Elizabeth Bishop’s poem of the same name), and dramatic monologue (Robert Browning, \u201cHis Last Duchess\u201d). There is also a short reading on “Performance” as a category, by Henry Sayre.<\/p>\n

Week Four:<\/strong><\/p>\n

All readings are in this packet<\/a> except where indicated below.<\/p>\n

For Monday, in addition to the exercise, read Elizabeth Alexander, \u201cLetter: Blues\u201d; Marilyn Chin, \u201cBlues on Yellow\u201d; John Hollander, \u201cBlue Wine\u201d; Maggie Nelson, from Bluets; and Wallace Stevens, \u201cOf the Surface of Things.\u201d (We won’t discuss these poems, but they will hopefully afford us a general atmosphere of blue in which to work.)<\/p>\n

For Wednesday, we turn to photography, and we will read John Ashbery, \u201cThe Picture of Little J. A. in a Prospect of Flowers\u201d; David Ferry, \u201cPlate 134\u201d (see image here<\/a>); Barbara Guest, \u201cPhotographs\u201d; Seamus Heaney, \u201cThe Grauballe Man\u201d; and Ben Lerner, \u201cThe Voice.\u201d You can look at the photographs from which Heaney originally worked (and glean some of the anthropological background) from looking at this excerpt<\/a> from P. V. Glob’s The Bog People. Also please read the excerpts from Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, and
\nThierry de Duve, \u201cTime Exposure and Snapshot: The Photograph as Paradox.\u201d<\/p>\n

Week Three:<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Monday, in addition to the exercise, listen to (and in some cases view) the following works: Dmitri Tymoczko, Prophetiae Sibyllarum<\/a>; Thomas Morley, April is in my Mistress’ Face<\/a>; three settings of the weird old song “Oh the Wind and the Rain,” by Crooked Still<\/a>, Jerry Garcia & David Grisman<\/a>, and Nico Muhly<\/a>, along with Alfred Deller singing Shakespeare’s “Hey Ho, the Wind and the Rain<\/a>“; Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues<\/a>; Coleman Barks reciting Rumi<\/a>, Christian B\u00f6k reciting “And Sometimes<\/a>,” and Allen Ginsberg reading at Royal Albert Hall 1965<\/a>. Some of the texts are in the packet for the week.<\/p>\n

Speaking of that packet<\/a>, on Wednesday, we turn to the visual arts: please read W. H. Auden, \u201cMus\u00e9e des Beaux Arts\u201d (see image here<\/a>); Homer, the shield of Achilles (from the Iliad); John Keats, \u201cOde on a Grecian Urn\u201d; Yusef Komunyakaa, \u201cBlackamoors, Villa La Petra\u201d (see images here<\/a>); Marianne Moore, \u201cEgyptian Pulled Glass Bottle in the Shape of a Fish\u201d (see image here<\/a>); plus excerpts from Horace, Ars Poetica; Gotthold Lessing, Laoc\u00f6on; W. J. T. Mitchell, \u201cEkphrasis and the Other\u201d; and Plato, The Republic.<\/p>\n

Week Two:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Monday, we will complement our discussion of scheme, on Wednesday, with a seminar on trope. The readings (collected in this packet<\/a>) are: Anne Carson, \u201cMerry Christmas from Hegel\u201d; Emily Dickinson, \u201cI Heard a Fly Buzz\u201d; John Donne, \u201cThe Funeral\u201d; H.D., \u201cSea Rose\u201d; and Terrance Hayes, \u201cAmerican Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin\u201d; plus excerpts from: Aristotle, Poetics;
\nHarry Berger, Jr., Figures of a Changing World; and Allen Grossman, Summa Lyrica. Tuesday, we get under way with the first of our neighbor arts, music. Please read from the same packet: John Keats, \u201cOde to a Nightingale\u201d; Shigeru Matsui, \u201cPure Poems\u201d; John Milton, \u201cAt a Solemn Music\u201d; Tracy K. Smith, \u201cWade in the Water\u201d; and Wallace Stevens, \u201cThe Idea of Order at Key West\u201d;\u00a0 plus excerpts from: Daniel K. L. Chua and Alexander Rehding, Alien Listening; John Hollander, \u201cThe Music of Poetry\u201d; Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, The Undercommons ; andArthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation. No exercise is set for this week.<\/p>\n

Week One:<\/strong><\/p>\n

We will begin, on Monday, with a miscellaneous assortment <\/a>of arguably poetic fragments against which to test our intuitions. For Wednesday, we will consider the broad category of poetic scheme, formal and rhetorical arrangements of language, including meter. Readings are collected in the weekly packet<\/a> and include: Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella 1; Sternhold and Hopkins, Psalm 24; William Shakespeare, Sonnet 30; Emily Dickinson, \u201cMuch Madness\u201d; Robert Frost, \u201cThe Oven Bird\u201d; William Butler Yeats, \u201cAn Irish Airman Foresees His Death\u201d; Colleen Thibaudeau, \u201cCandle\u201d and \u201cDump Truck\u201d; Cathy Park Hong, \u201cMarket Forces Are Brighter than the Sun,\u201d as well as excerpts from Paul Fussell, Poetic Meter and Poetic Form; Nicolas Abrams, Rhythms: On the Work, Translation, and Psychoanalysis; Mutlu Konuk Blasing, Lyric Poetry: The Pleasure and Pain of Words; Richard Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Week 12 Readings are included in this packet. For Monday, please read four short, experimental essays: Eula Biss, \u201cThe Pain Scale\u201d; Brian Blanchfield, \u201cLocus Amoenus\u201d;\u00a0 Wayne Koestenbaum, \u201cThe Writer\u2019s Obligation\u201d; Lisa Robertson, \u201cTime in the Codex\u201d In each case, identify one aspect of the text (a particular moment, a larger strategy) that you consider poetic, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Readings”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":379,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-41","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/poetry-and-the-arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/poetry-and-the-arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/poetry-and-the-arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/poetry-and-the-arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/379"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/poetry-and-the-arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/poetry-and-the-arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/poetry-and-the-arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/41\/revisions\/173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/poetry-and-the-arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}