WRI 313: Advanced Poetry Workshop

Spring 2012 / MWF1: 1:00p – 2:20p

• overview
• assessment
  & evaluation
• portfolio
• process
• project FEEDBACK
• policies

Inspiration, Invention, Revision

When some think of poetry, they think of the poet as the source or conduit of inspiration. Poetry, then, is an explosion of a moment, of emotion, an instant of experience spontaneously erupted onto the page.

The poet knows otherwise.

While poems may well begin with a flash—something felt, thought, or witnessed needs to be written—bringing the poem forth from that initial moment involves the often slow and purposeful work of revision.

This class will help you understand, cultivate, and strategize revision. Revision isn't often as immediately thrilling as the initial invention of a poem, and it often involves deciding to take the poem in a direction that is different from that first impulse. Some revisions will take you two steps backward; then another draft (or 2 or 12) will take you aloft. Sometimes revision means inventing a completely new poem. In all, however, revision is where your poems—and you as a poet—most grow.

Why & Whatfor "Intentional" Revision?

I assume that students in an advanced poetry course are ready to adopt a more sophisticated view of poetry and to create more sophisticated poems. To make this leap in your understanding and creation requires a heightened awareness. I'll ask you as readers (of other work as well as your own) to be aware of what the poem is trying to accomplish. I'll ask you as writers to aim beyond your initial impulse. Revision, then, involves the conscious choices you as a poet make to try to reach that greater goal.

I'm also hugely interested in poets' manuscripts, those documents that can show the path of revision and form a narrative of a poem's—and a poet's—evolution. The manuscript can capture the poet's intentional strikeout or reordering, and it can also serve as a place to understand after the fact one's own intention behind certain changes. We'll be looking at manuscripts—including the manuscripts of several local poets who will visit our class—as narratives of revision. And in working too collect your semester's work of revision in an Evolutionary Portfolio, your manuscripts will guide your own work.

Still, Mystery & Recklessness

All of this attention to intentionality can tend to bully mystery. Certainly there are inexplicable steps in the process of writing a poem. So, we'll allow for the inchoate, and I'll include time for uncertainty, for chaos, and for impulsive revision, for being reckless.

What I Expect You'll Learn & How I'll Assess It

• You will become aware of revision, identifying—and then deploying—intentional choices made in the process of drafting and re-drafting a poem.
• Through this course you will become a more astute reader of poetry, able to describe a poem on its own terms and able to compare your own poems and those of your peers in the context of contemporary poetry.
• You will become further aware of poetic craft, identifying various strategies in the poems you read.
• You will explore and demonstrate your understanding of both craft and poems in generous discussion and focused writerly prose (annotations) .
• You will develop strategies for more effective feedback, including giving notes that respond to the piece at hand and best offer means for the writer to improve. You'll also learn how to listen to and use feedback to improve your own work.
• Overall, the entire course will introduce new starting points in your process of crafting poems and ultimately add to your flexibility as a poet.
• You'll propose a larger direction for your work by preparing your portfolio, which, who knows, may sow the seeds for your Senior Project.

I'll look for you to demonstrate this understanding and these abilities in: 1) your consistent engagement with the reading (including adequate preparation and involvement in class discussion); 2) your consistent participation in the writing process (including in-class writing, drafts of assigned poems, preparation for workshop, considered feedback to your peers); and 3) your prose (annotations and ocassional reflections on revision). However, the portfolio is the primary means of assessment in this class.

Evaluation

• Preliminary Portfolio 15%
• Final Evolutionary Portfolio 55%
• Reading (preparation & discussion) 10%
• Process (in-class invention & writing, drafts, workshop, peer response) 10%
• Annotations (2) 10%

Required Texts:

• Neubauer, Alexander. Ed. Poetry in Person: Twenty-five Years of Conversation with America's Poets. 978-0307269676
• Walker, Frank X. Buffalo Dance: the Journey of York. 978-0813190884
• Godfrey, Landon. Second-Skin Rhinestone-Spangled Nude Soufflé Chiffon Gown. 978-1930781061
• Iglesias, Holly. Souvenirs of a Shrunken World. 978-1-888553-260

A note on reserves: A copy of each course text is on 3-hour reserve in the library for your occasional use (say, you left your book in your room across the bridge one day and want to review the reading before class). Please do not expect to use the reserve copy as your copy: get the books.

The Evolutionary Portfolio

This is a portfolio class.

Everything you do in and out of class—reading, discussion, exercises, poems (drafts & revisions), workshops, annotations—should be taken as potential material for your portfolio. The portfolio you build throughout the semester demonstrates the extent and nuance of your learning about poetry via your revisions and what influenced them. In terms of the specific goals of this course, your portfolio is your primary publication for the class. You'll be creating an annotated edition of your own work, tracing the evolution of several poems through multiple drafts with commentary on your revision choices. In that it should include:

1. An Author's Preface/Reader's Guide: An introductory overview to your portfolio, including your main observations of what you learned about revision and your revision process
2. A Table of Contents for the entire portfolio
3. For each included poem: a Guide to the Manuscripts that shows us on the local level what we'll see in that section
4. Multiple drafts of each poem
5. On & within the drafts: Paratexts: in-line commentary and end notes/annotations discussing what you're doing as you revise
6. Optional Appendixes: anything else you want to include to demonstrate your accomplishment and learning

A portfolio has three audiences: yourself and a two-fold public of your poet-peers and me. As a public document, the most successful portfolio offers a view into your process of thinking and revising as much as it showcases your products. In fact, the more you can recall that the portfolio is the underlying activity of the class, the more successful your portfolio will be. But the self-consciousness of the porfolio can interfere with the dreaming, drafting, and accidents that are also crucial to writing poems. So, my best advice is to hold onto everything you do in class as raw material for the portfolio and periodically sort through it.

Your Preliminary Portfolio is an abbreviated portfolio that presents the evolution of a single poem including only #3, 4, & 5 above.

The final Evolutionary Portfolio should include mulitple poems. Depending on the number of drafts, I'd say this means 2-5 poems.

Reading

Most weeks we will devote Monday's class to readings drawn from the assigned texts. You are expected to have read the material carefully before class, to bring the books/handouts, and to arrive with comments and questions. Understanding revision choices—by comparing earlier with later drafts—is often difficult. Reading, then, may well mean re-reading. And given this difficulty, your preparation serves the entire class, which will need your input.

Process & Workshop

The twelve workshops—and the drafts & revisions you'll write for them—are the center of the writing and revising process you'll participate in over the semester. Early in each term, you'll have free reign to write a new poem. Later in each term, I'll specifically ask for revisions. Although your work will only be discussed in every other workshop, you are expected to write every poem*. I know sometimes a poem just doesn't happen the way you want it to. Bring us your roughest drafts. As Dean Young says, sometimes the workshop can show you how what you thinking are "mistakes" are actually the strength of a the poem-to-be.

*You can take a pass one week with no penalty on your grade. If it is your turn for workshop, it's your turn. This cannot be rescheduled.

Prepare for workshop by reading and commenting on the poems. Participate in workshop by sharing your observations and critiques in a way that meets the poem on its own terms and helps the poet in revision. Pass on your ideas to the poet by writing a short summary note in addition to marginal comments. Workshop calendar

Poems are due—uploaded to Moodle—by high noon on the dates indicated. These deadlines are crucial in order for me to manage the organization of the worksheets. Late submissions may not be included in the workshop packet. All late work is noted as such and an accumulation of lateness impacts your process grade.

You are responsible for logging onto Moodle, and printing* the workshop packet so that you can write your feedback and bring the texts to class. You are welcome to print on recyled paper. *If you wish to download to a laptop or tablet and annotate electronically, you are welcome to do so. You still must transfer those electronic comments to the writer (and when I ask for them, to me) in a timely fashion.

project FEEDBACK

I've been watching a lot of reality tv. And I have a habit, as my wife reminds me, of turning recreation into work. So, it began to occur to me that a particular genre of reality tv serves as an unexpected ally in the facilitation of more effective peer-to-peer relation for more effective peer review. Specifically, programs like Project Runway, American Idol, and So You Think You Can Dance, in which contestants are engaged in making creative products for which they receive critique from expert judges, offer examples of both what constitute good notes—encouraging or correcting specific technique, whether in hem or tone or step—and poor notes—affirming "awesome" performances or delivering critiques in a patronizing tone.

With this premise in mind, we'll devote our Friday class sessions to what I'm calling project FEEDBACK. We'll watch tv with a critical purpose: forming a critical taxonomy of reality television judging as a way of opening a new paradigm for effective peer review in the workshop. I'll be presenting on this topic at a conference just after spring break, so you'll be helping me with my research as we all learn ways to help each other with feedback that works.

Annotations

An annotation is a short prose analysis that pursues a single aspect of craft within a single poem. An annotation does not analyze theme; it is not what you would write in an English literature course. An annotation is obsessive, focused, and short (2 pages). The annotation can be a challenging genre, especially if you have never written one before. I'll hand out further guidelines and advice and encourage those who are unfamiliar to come talk to me about your ideas first. You'll write two (2) annotations, one each term on poems that you find outside of class. Always include a copy of the poem with the annotation.

Due dates: Friday, February 17 & Monday, April 16

A "test drive" annotation may be turned in on Wednesday, February 8. If you have never written an annotation for a creative writing course, you should opt to write and submit one to see if you're on target with this peculiar genre before the graded annotation in due.

Policies

Attendance
Both our discussions and our workshops require your presence as we work in a collaborative and accumulative mode. Missed work (including in-class writing and feedback) cannot be made up. Although you’ll find the most success if you attend (which means attendance with preparation) every class, you are allowed 3 absences to allow for interceding realities.

Absences in excess of 3 will lower your final grade. A note from the health center does change this fact, although exceptions may be made in cases of extended illness. Staying in contact with me is essential in such situations.

*Please contact me (preferrably via email) if you must miss class, and I will do my best to assist you with missed work (although your most immediate resource is your classmates).

Remember that shift work is never an excuse for missing class, and you should schedule routine appointments for other times. Chronic lateness or early departure is equivalent to absence. Missing more than 6 classes is grounds for failure in the course.

Late Work
In-class assignments cannot be duplicated or turned in late. Likewise, worksheet material must be ready (with the appropriate number of copies) at the beginning of the class period when it is due. Late drafts may not be included in the worksheet. All late works impacts your Process grade. I understand that the assignment and your muse may not always coincide, but everyone is drafting from the same position. Bring what you have. If you are having difficulties with a particular poem, come see me—the earlier the better.

For graded assignments, your grade will drop 1/3 of a grade for each class day it is late (e.g. a B- becomes a C+). You may not skip any project and pass the course.

free extension card: I do consider requests for extensions but ONLY if you ask me more than 24 hours in advance of the deadline. And each student gets just one free extension card to play each semester. This offer cannot guarantee that a late workshop poem will be included in the packet.

Academic Integrity
You will engage closely with the work of published authors and exchange many ideas collaboratively with other students. Still, all writing you submit for this course is assumed to be your own. If you are concerned that what you write might owe more than inspiration to another source, acknowledge that debt (we poets often use a note like, After Ovid). Willfully presenting the work of others as your own is a serious issue for which the College has penalties. Any confirmed plagiarism will automatically mean failure of that assignment, and, depending on the specifics of the incident, you may fail the course.

Accommodation
Students with disabilities who believe that they may need accommodations in this class are encouraged to contact Deborah Braden, Educational Access Coordinator (Dodge House, x3791, dbraden@warren-wilson.edu), as soon as possible to ensure that appropriate accommodations can be implemented in a timely fashion.