Spring 2007 WRI 316 Calendar
Professor Susan Ludvigson
3:30-4:45 M-W, BANC 264
January 8 Intro to course and each other; reading of a few contemporary poems. Assignment: Find in one of our anthologies a poem that appears to be based on a dream. Write a prose account of one of your own dreams, using as much specific detail as possible. Remember to make copies for everyone.
10 Read aloud the poems you selected and the prose accounts of dreams. Discussion of how dream poems work and how best to use the images/details/material of your own dreams. Assignment: dream poem.
Martin Luther King Holiday
17 Critique dream poems.
22 Critique dream poems; assignment: letter poem
24 Critique letter poems
29 Critique letter poems; assignment: “steal a line” poem
31 Critique “steal a line poems”
February 5 In-class exercises; assignment: write a Valentine poem that is not clichéd, one that turns our expectations upside down.
7 Critique Valentine poems
12 Critique Valentine poems ; assignment : persona poems
14 Critique persona poems
19 Critique persona poems; assignment: poem emphasizing lyric qualities
21 Critique lyric poems
22 Critique lyric poems
26 Visit to art gallery; assignment: poem about a piece of art
28 Critique art poems
March 5 Critique art poems; assignment: Poem imitating another poem
7 Critique “imitation” poems
12-18 Spring break
19 Critique “imitation” poems ; assignment : a spring poem that defies expectaions
21 Critique spring poems
26 Critique spring poems; assignment: an April Fool’s poem
28 Critique April Fool’s poem; assignment:
April 2 Introduction to formal elements of poetry: assignment: a poem in one of the forms discussed
4 Critique of formal poems
9 Critique of formal poems; assignment: second formal poem
11 Critique of second formal poems
16 Critique of second formal poems; assignment: Invent a form—details to be discussed later
18 Critique invented forms
23 Critique invented forms
Final Exam will be a poetry reading, in which each student will read 2-3 poems written during the semester.