ENGL 377: Poetry II

Course Overview

Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal but which the reader recognizes as their own.
—SALVATORE QUASIMODO
You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it technically tick… You’re back with the mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps in the works of the poem so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in.
—DYLAN THOMAS
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So here you are: once again facing the blank page, stirred by some inarticulate thought or feeling; once again positioning your ear to both tune in and tune out the vast field of language’s possibilities. Once again, you are here to write poems—good poems. But what makes a poem “good”? How do we know? And, how on earth does one write one? This intermediate poetry writing course is grounded in two distinct ideas the epigraphs above speak to: 1) that the best poems offer a unifying song, not just of me or I, but of we and us; and 2) that the best poems surface from a fine balance of mindfulness (intent, formal intelligence) and mindlessness (chance, accident).

So here we are. This semester, we will commit to the difficult task of writing good poems. We will expand our understanding of poetry by way of an intensive combination of reading, workshopping, critiquing, conferencing, and revising. Because you should be grounded in the basic elements of poetry (line, image, metaphor, meter, rhyme, alliteration, etc.) from the prerequisite course, ENGL 220, I expect you to read and write with a discerning, critical eye for these poetic devices. With these tools in mind and with the close study of contemporary poems that we’ll undertake, you will, I hope, “flash” and “thunder in” as you continue to test and refine your poetic skills.

Required Texts:
Biddinger, Mary. Small Enterprise. Black Lawrence Press, 2015.
Glück, Louise. The First Four Books of Poems. Ecco Press, 1999. [Available as e-book through library & linked on OAKS course page]
The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry. Ed. Rita Dove. NY: Penguin Books, 2012.

One Comment

  1. I think of the enjambment in this poem plays out as if the narrator is dangling a carrot before the faces of the readers. He uses this technique to strategically pull us into the space this poem creates. He invites us to stand in his shoes and trudge around in his muddled thoughts.

    The narrator choice to favor short lines in this poem also does the work of building suspense. We as readers want to press onward in search of the heart of the poem from the very first line, “thanks for the tree between me & the sniper’s bullet,” It begins with these 2 incredibly engaging lines that immediately orient the reader to the tone of the poem. These line breaks act as natural caesuras in that they put forth a fragmented, unsettling piece of information that demands clarification. For example, in line 6, “some voice always followed,” The reader is instinctually invited to question, well, what voice followed? Where is this voice coming from? Is it a literal or metaphorical one? It should also be noted that structuring the poem in this way almost mimics the choppy, fight or flight though process of being in warzone, where you can’t fully dive into thoughts because you as a warrior are to preoccupied with surviving.

    I also think it’s important to mention the usage of rhymes and slant rhymes throughout this poem, as it endows the piece with a special sonic quality that’s very pleasing to the ear when said aloud. You can see the rhyme scheme go to work immediately in the first 2 lines of the poem. Specifically, with the words “tree”, “between”, and “me”. When I see these rhyming words tightly grouped together, I admire the sonic quality it produces. It simply sounds very pleasant to the ear and provides for a smooth read, yet if you delve deeper into the content of the two lines you’ll find that it efficiently articulates a very horrific near death experience endured by the narrator. So although we as readers often associate this kind of sing- songy rhyme scheme with more pleasant imagery, the narrator provides a stark contrast by harnessing the power of imagery that’s much darker than anticipated. Another great example of rhyme used effectively in this poem is with the words “Chu Lai” and “silence”. I think often times rhyming words can inadvertently invite the reader to infer meaning between the two words that have been rhymed. Having silence rhyme with Chu Lai immediately provokes the reader to think about the eerie silence of being in these foreign villages. It pulls me into that space and forces me to pay attention, to listen to what’s going on inside the poem. I may just be grasping at nothing here but I truly do adore poems that strike the happy balance of a pleasant rhyme scheme, but not rhyming so much as to be distracting and or detract from the meaning of the poem.

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