a portfolio poem?? maybe?

i don't know. here's my deal: i have to do the class portfolio, but i am also likely doing a chapbook or portfolio-type thing for my belated senior project (why didn't anyone tell me i was supposed to do it last semester??). anyhow: my two ideas are, because everything else i've been writing has been quite disparate, (1) a series of poems about our class and the people in it for the class portfolio. not sure the exact shape it would take but i think i could do this. (2) a series of poems involving my experience in norway and readjusting to USA. and the following is a draft of one of them:

Night now is never black only gray or maybe purple indefinably. Doves congregate elsewhere and leave us the pigeons. Unfaltering electrical dusk conquers stars and hovers. At home they won’t wear socks to save themselves. Where I am is somewhere else, all knee-high knitted things and permanent cold winters lightless and lasting five months. Candles that softened the blow blown out before bed for safety under defenseless covers. I was frozen. Oh! not by the snow and rain by a constant delirium a nakedness of self an unsureness a discomfort a terror. A convincing inner social advertisement for letting land lock us for belonging and a familiar social milieu. I was wrong. Nothing is sure in life but death and taxes let me ask you mister: do you prefer death? Then consider this: would you give us back your poor?

HEY

Here's another poem I wrote while I was supposed to be working on my annotated bibliography for another class

it's another circular poem. tried making the circles intersect. i kind of like it but i think it's a lot messier than the first one. tried to use more repetition.

i'm also annoyed that one of the circles ended up looking kind of like a peace sign. def. unintentional.

Chapbooks

What is a goodish length do you think? I'm sitting on mine at 21 pages at full MS word size with 1 inch margins. (Aside: text format is actually very important for this particular projected, and I cringe at the thought of having to reorganize it for something smaller than an 8x10). The thing is starting to make me crazy, and I need closure. I could make it longer. Much longer, actually, but I don't know if it's a good idea. Thoughts?

And also, how is everyone else doing on their stuff?

In Lieu of an Etude

Instead of an etude for next week, Mar 4, post a sample of current work you intend to include in your portfolio.  That way we can spend part of class time talking to each other about your work and perhaps even writing on it.  Since we have a fair amount of reading to do, I think it will be fine to skip a week.  Remember that a draft of your portfolio is due after spring break.

Harryman

Reading Adorno, I always find his style to be rather insufferable because of the broad didactic statements he makes. So I wonder how Harryman was influenced by his style, or even if there is any correlation between her style and Adorno's. I also wondered if the ties between Adorno and Harryman are strongest in Baby since Adorno complains about how the new generation is "insufferably more grown-up"--whether Harryman writes Baby as a response to Adorno's critique, an attempt to explore ways in which simplicity and surprise are still present in contemporary individuals.

Now 'tis time to run to class....

What I Found at the Library

I've wasted many hours at McFarlin scouring the books. However, when I went this week I was drawn to the people, not the paper. There was a small cluster of EMO/Scene kids in one corner of the study area, so I sat and watched them (probably a little creepily). Then I started considering what it would like to BE them, and how perceptions color the world, yatta, yatta. I then decided to do sort of satirical piece about what it's like to operate within that social subgroup. I will admit that I was somewhat influenced by the art that is currently hanging at The Collective, which--I think--is supposed to be satire. It seeded the idea at least. Anyway, here it is.





-Strix

a visual poeTRY

not sure if this is what you wanted or not. went to the library. got a bunch of words. wrote them down. used some photoshop to shape words into damn circles. took a lot longer than I thought it would. but had fun. click on it if you actually want to read the words.

Etude 5

Vocab is the history of libraries from Wikipedia. I arranged it like, well, stacks. No editing of any kind other than to make the words fit in regularly sized text boxes.

So I don't have any fancy editing programs, just cut and resized a bunch of photos of words.

Here's my "visual poem". The top rectangle of text and the centre block of text are both from books in the library. The panel on the left is text from the internet since one of the primary uses of the library seems to be for internet access. The rest of the text was "found" in the library.

in-class exercise

Sorry that took me so long. I feel bad...I was so enthusiastic. Anyway, I am going to send the Word file of this to Dr. J to send to the rest of you. I thought we could all make some proposed edits and print out our versions and compare them in class, perhaps.

Octet-subtract-pentacle

Three days ago wasn't it

pretty outside, inside it wasn't

your name Beatrice.

mellifluous lackadaisical jackrabbits

this burrow leads down radiantly

into an underworld prepared just for you

clouds obscuring the sun fall

of shadows and pausing, giving

a different type of life

daedalus rain hides all

sons in dreary moldy whoredom

commence in sodomic dildo-cleansing dawn

An astral change meets the remorse

Your gestalt names me lethargy,

stares sagely to generate mercury

Nebulous obscuring blackness

orb trembling, bearing

breaking barrenness of being

quietly beasts stare as

alive armatures dance

sunlit dominion accelerates

with woman-wit heal and ache. no enemy

maybe the male mate (once only)

yodel a tryst, an aria--a hot winter ire

nomenclature conveyed of Icarus-enemy

comings past-occurrence (was it not?) comely

Enclosed ceiling-space (it was not)

nectarous procrastinating one 

den careens down radiantly

underworld cleaned in preparation 

Balance brought by the black of

catastrophic formation of the ancient

East visible in the line 

Metamorphic augmentation met trembling Cimmerian

calamity formation moaning timeworn memories

magnetic admonitions marking imagination

In-class exercise

I haven't forgotten, I left my notebook with the poems in my apt and I've been away for the day. Will post the poem when I get back later today! :)

Étude 5

There are only two requirements to this étude, and then you can run with it from there:

(1) Go to the library and make a poem. This can be anything from writing something inspired by McFarlin or using source materials to put something together. It's really completely open.

(2) Make the poem visual--not just typed into the blog and posted. Either make a digital poem with photoshop or paint or something, or create a physical poem and scan it in. Then post. 

-dz

Week 6 Class Exercise

In this exercise, I want us to write a collaborative, improvised series that is produced from a set of arbitrary procedures.  We'll post the results on this blog after class.

PART I

1. Get into pairs or threes
   
2. Write a poem with the following parameters:  three lines where each line can stand on its own but also can be enjambed over the line break
   

PART II 

1. Switch partners with one taking a poem so that the new pairs each have one poem; use a new sheet of paper
   
2. Translate the poem using only words that have a specific consonant, i.e. one group uses only words that have the letter p in them, another group uses s, another n, another m, and last the letter b.
   

 PART III

1. Switch partners again getting a new poem from another group
   
2. On a new sheet of paper write another three lined poem that is thematically relevant to the one in front of you but using only words that you can make from anagrams of your names
   

 PART IV

1. Now, let’s read the poems aloud and then work as a whole group to place the poems in a striking, effective, or thematically coherent order.
   

Re: Will Alexander

Blogger won't let me comment....

I actually liked his reading. There were points when the combination of rhythm and alliteration made echoes of rap, I thought, which seemed appropriate, though his actual poetry looks so far removed from any tradition on the page. Hearing the rhythm of the words and the alliteration/assonance made a lot more sense than just trying to wade through the vocabulary on the page. Also I find listening to poetry read aloud to be a catalyst for my own writing.

I'd agree that he's one of the poets whose poetry and poetics seem to match most closely. On some level he seems to be reworking the ideas of inspiration--as though poetic inspiration is tuning in to a "supra-consciousness", "supra-linguistic" frequency. Perhaps for him the sound of the words is as least as important as their meaning.

Announcements

Please make note of the following events, assignments, readings, meetings, etc:

1. Please read Carla Harryman's short books: Baby, Memory Play, and Open Box for next week.
2. Also read the short selection from Adorno's Minima Moralia.
3. Attend the luncheon for Harryman next Wednesday at noon before class in the Choteau Room of ACAC.  I'll pass around the sign-up sheet.
4. Hear Harryman read at 7 pm in the Faculty Study of McFarlin Library.  Bring friends.
5. Sign-up for the Sat Mar 7 poetry reading by emailing julie-bishop at utulsa.edu.  It's from 5-7 pm at The Collective.  
6. Keep a spot free on your calendar Feb 28-29.  OGEW is going to have a meeting and do some writing.  Hosted by Melody Charles.  Time TBA.  
7. Someone should post a new Etude. 

Responses to Will Alexander

Will Alexander is kind of nuts! Or I guess I should just say he's really, really out there. Listening to him during the Af Am class on Monday was really interesting, as was the discussion before he came in. Sadly, I thought the reading was about as boring as all readings--I just can't process words fast enough aurally. I did like the Heidegger poem, though. (Spell check thinks that should be headgear, by the way.)

I think it's interesting how--though Alexander's poetic process is very automatic, like it just comes out of him upon provocation and he can't reliably tell you what inspired it or what the message it--what his poems do seems to match up with his personal philosophy. His poems go along with his poetics more than anyone I think I know of. One example: In the Af Am class we were talking about synecdoche in the Exobiology book and how basically you can take one chunk of the poems to stand for the whole thing--it's crazy and wack and out there, but it's a repeating pattern and no need to really read the poem in order. Then when he came he stressed the importance of his nonsequential thinking process in his poetry and in his life in general.

ANYWAY I'd like to post more examples bc that's not the best one...but I have to go take the GRE. See you in class. I suppose you can use the comments of this post to discuss Alexander.

P.S. You all shoulda come to the class. 

Research Project

As our class research project, we are all going to research at least 3 journals in order to create a publishing database for the class. Start with Shelby's List, a list of experimental presses, magazines, and journals, and choose a few that look interesting. Then, check out their web site, order a sample copy if necessary, and report back to the class about what you found.

Post your results on this blog, one entry for each magazine, using the title of the journal for the title of the blog post. For each entry, include the address of the magazine (both mail and web site), name of the editor, a sampling of names who have published in the magazine, and a description of the style and editorial mission of the journal. If you cannot find the following info on the journal's web site, I suggest you contact the editor to ask a) if they are accepting submissions, b) how many they accept and how often, c) what format they want submission in.

DUE DATE: April 1 (so we can all have time to send out poetry before the end of the term)

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Responses to Week 5 Readings

Please post your comments in reaction to the readings by Puckett, Oppen, Roethke, and Conte here. I know it's a busy reading week, but don't worry, we'll get back to writing next week. Thanks to Crystal for posting Etude 4!

Article about Carla Harryman

Hi all. Just wondering if anyone would be interested in writing an article about Harryman's upcoming reading for the Collegian. We are planning to publish the story in next Tuesday's issue to let students know that she's coming and a little about who she is. You would get paid for about two hours work. And I'm pretty sure Dr. Jenkins would cooperate and give you quotes. :) Let me know...maybe someone would give you extra credit, too!!! AND it would make you more prepared for her visit so you can ask intelligent questions and prevent awkward silences during class.

-Danielle

P.S. Let me extend this to say that anyone who wants to write for the Collegian is SO WELCOME. Contact me in particular if you are interested in writing for the Variety Section. I can get you free tickets to things (not a bribe...).

Etude 4

This one's a team effort, so you have two options here.

a. Grab some old class notes, if you still have them, from a class you either really liked or really hated, and make some found poetry out of those. Do you actually remember anything you learned? Fill in the gaps if you can, without consulting any references. The stuff you make up will probably be better than the actual class material anyway. (Loosely, this could be like an extension of Etude 1, where you had to think about subjects/vocabularies you liked and hated.)

b. Take your notebook and sit in a coffee shop or other public place (ACAC? park bench? whatever). Write down scraps of conversation that you overhear. Not necessarily the interesting scraps, either--try being as continuous as possible for awhile. Then make some found poetry out of the notes you've taken.

Will Alexander to Visit Tulsa, Feb 16 & 17

All, unexpectedly, Will Alexander will be here a week from today, so I have revised the syllabus to reflect that change. So please prepare to read Exobiology as Goddess for next week. You are also invited to my Monday night seminar on Af Am lit in Zink 354 where Will will be discussing his work. His reading will be Tues, Feb 17, 7PM.

Poetry Reading Postponed

I've pushed our first poetry reading back to March 25, the Thursday after Spring Break. I'll announce the venue soon, but it will be at 8pm.

Etude 4?

I think it's a good precedent that we take turns coming up with the etudes. Since Russ came up with Etude 3, who wants to do Etude 4? Although it's not due for 2 weeks, the volunteer should just post the exercise as a new posting so everyone can see it easily. I've put a link to Charles Bernstein and Bernadette Mayer's list of experiments that you can use as inspiration (or steal outright) for your etude.

Renata on Heidegger

Dear class, Renata wanted me to post her thoughts about the readings until she's blog-savvy:

About Heidegger, I would like to know more about 'Emergence:' As I read Heidegger, I see the emergence of truth (beauty?) from the work of art as the inherent quality that conceals and reveals itself, which is beyond usefulness, that reveals itself in poetry, for example, as the unsayable, that which cannot be said, a slippery notion . The poetic reveals itself through words. The other arts have their own language which also conceals and reveals truth (beauty?) of the work created. 'Emergence' therefore is a process, an unstable relationship that cam be apprehended but not possessed. Emergence occurs because the artist was able, consciously or unconsciously, to create over and beyond the work itself. This makes me think of Bachelard or, to refer to the experimental writers of the packet you distributed in class, to Blake's notion of the 'contraries.'