WRI 516, Spring 2007 Calendar

Professor Susan Ludvigson

6:30-9:15 T, KINA 102

January 9

Introductions to course and to each other.  Filmed interviews; assignment: form pairs, each student interviewing the other by e-mail or in person, after reading a sampling of the other’s poems.  Prepare to conduct oral interviews for class.

16              Interviews; assignment: practice in revision—bring to class a poem from WRI 316

23              Discussion of 316 poems, strategies for revision; assignment: final revision of poem

30        Critique revision poems; assignment: experimental poems

February 6      Critique experimental poems; assignment: surprising Valentine poem

13        Critique of Valentine poems; assignment: Read Gregory Orr’s essay “The Four Temperaments of Poetry.”  Decide which two of the temperaments he defines as your strongest and and the two you believe are your weakest.  Write a poem emphasizing your two weakest temperaments. 

20        Weakest temperaments poems; assignment: Read Stephen Dunn’s essay “Complaint, Complicity and Outrage in American Poetry.”  Prepare to discuss the essay.  Write political poem keeping his ideas in mind.

27        Critique political poems; assignment: formal poem

March 6          Critique formal poem; assignment: invent a form

20        Critique invented form poems; assignment: write a poem in another student’s invented form

27        Critique borrowed invented form poems

April 3 Buy and write review a collection of poems by a single poet,  published in 2006 or 2007.  Make copies of three of the poems you discuss for the class.

10        Read reviews orally and discuss.

17        Read reviews orally and discuss