Course syllabus

Semester 2, 2020

Monday 9:05 – 11:55 AM, SCIENCE B302, Room G20

Professor Lisa Samuels, l.samuels@auckland.ac.nz, office Arts 1/Humanities room 631, Mon 1:15-2:15 and by appointment

 

Course description  

This course is for upper-level undergraduates who want to study some of the last 40 years of experiments in English-language poetries. Readings will be from books, websites and journals. We’ll discuss literary, political, lingual, and multicultural themes in poetry and we will learn about poetic representation, layout, digitality, soundings, and performance. This is a critical skills class as well as an opportunity to learn about new writings.

Englishes are global (though not ubiquitous), and contemporary poetry in English happens in many parts of the world. Our readings are written by people with origins in, and/or published by venues based in: Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, Egypt, Germany, India, Romania, Samoa, South Korea, Trinidad, UK, and USA. No doubt some of our writers and publication venues have additional cultural origins and commitments that we may discover when we look further into their contexts.

 

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Requirements

1 Participation 10%.

2 Observation & Question (OQ) 15%.

3 Two essay drafts for in-class peer review, 2.5% each, 5%.

4 Two essays, 20% each, 40%.

5 Final test, 30%.

 

1 Participation
Class time will combine presentation and discussion. In general, teacher commentaries and student OQs will suggest approaches to the day’s readings and the class will discuss those approaches and readings. Your preparation will be important as you respond to being called on during class and as we meet in groups to discuss passages for interpretation. Participation is both a requirement and a generosity.

Take notes during class, including terms, ideas, and passages discussed. These notes will help you participate in the knowledge culture of this course and will serve you well in your essay writing and test preparation. Get to know the course glossary, which will be of similar help.

You are permitted 1 week of unexcused absence; your course grade can be expected to drop by two points for each unexcused absence thereafter. Excused absences must be documented by official notices (e.g., from doctors). If you have good reasons for missing class, you should let me know.

2 Observation & Question (OQ)
The OQ groups will be determined once class enrolment is finalized: each group will have about four people. Selecting a reading from its assigned week, the OQ group will divide its energies in half: some members will research the poetic context of the selected reading and some will research the poetic form. Context means things like: the place(s) affiliation(s) of the person(s) who wrote the piece; the moment or background that gave rise to that piece of writing; the evident interests of the publication venue; the ideas that seem to be supported in the cultural contexts of the writer(s), venue, and/or background moment. Form means things like: lingual style (word choice, phrase types); layout formation (line, strophes, open forms); historical or unprecedented nature of that style and/or layout; combinations of media exceeding the lingual (visuals, somatics, etc).

NOTE: At least one person in the group should devote attention to the poem’s performance of meaning: what can, and what cannot, be paraphrased, with one clear example of how an unparaphrasable aspect of the poem is performing meaning. Note that this paraphrase issue can be a matter of either context or form.

Each OQ group member will write a 250-word (desired, minimum) to 350-word (maximum) report on the most crucial result of their individual investigations into context or form. Name and word count in the doc/docx.

The OQ group will then decide together on ONE question, based on what you have considered crucial in your individual reports. The question should be an “open” one and specifically pertinent: it doesn’t have to be “answerable,” but it has to arise from the work(s) you are reading and from a genuine sense of something that bears thinking about. Formulate the question one of two ways:

1 “Even though X happens in this work, Y also happens. How do we account for the differences?”

For example, “How does X (something specific we can paraphrase) relate with Y (something specific we cannot paraphrase)?”

For another example, “X demonstrates one kind of value or belief for what it means to write poetry. Y demonstrates a different one. What happens in the difference(s) between those demonstrated values?”

2 “What is the relation between X form(s) and Y context(s) in the publication of this piece?”

For example, “Is the X (e.g., multilingual / multimedia / appropriated sources) style of this work only possible in the Y (e.g., cultural, technical, editorial) context of its publication?”

For another example, “This work wants to give voice to X (e.g., more-than-human or non-contemporary or cross-cultural) aspects of the world and this Y context supports that voice and/or prevents that voice in Z ways.”

One group member will compile this material into a SINGLE document (doc or docx). Put the group question and everyone’s names at the top of this document. Upload to Canvas your OQ document by 3 PM on the Friday BEFORE Monday’s class. I will then post that document to the whole class, and all of us are expected to read over the OQ before Monday’s class.

In class, your group will help guide our discussion of your OQ question. Your individual reports, or parts of them, may be read aloud as you help us consider your question. As this set-up should make clear, there should be a productive correlation between your individual reports and the group question.

Marks will be accorded like this: 10% for your individual report and 5% for the group, for the perspicacity of the question (how well it correlates with the circumstances and forms of the writing(s) you are responding to and how well it correlates with your individual reports) and for the in-class guidance.

I recommend that everyone create an ongoing file that gathers together all the 323 OQs: you should begin to see patterns of themes, styles, and readings that help you perceive and enjoy the poetry topics of this course.

 

3 & 4 Drafts for peer review & Essays

You will write two essays of about 1,250 words each (5 pages in a 12-point font with normative margins), each worth 20% of your course mark. Include the word count in your document. Assignments and expectations will be clarified in advance.

500-word rough drafts are due for in-class work on the dates indicated in the schedule below: each of these is worth 2.5% (total 5%). The point is to get started on the essays and to work together to perceive and improve your expressions of ideas.

On the due date, upload your essay to the Canvas Assignment slot provided.

 

5 Test

In our final meeting, you will have an in-class test consisting of short answer/micro-essay readings of poetry passages you need to analyze with reference to specific features. Make-up tests will be administered only with an official excuse. There is NO FINAL EXAM for this course.

 

Technology policies

Students are encouraged to use laptop computers in class for taking notes and looking at prepared and online materials directly relevant to that class. It is vital that these computers NOT be used during class for matters external to our readings and discussions.

During class, please do not use mobile phones, ipods, or other such devices for personal matters. If you have an emergency situation that requires you to be contactable on a given day, please let me know before class begins so that the class can be prepared for the possibility of a momentary interruption.

 

Disabilities Accommodation Statement

If you have a condition that impairs your ability to satisfy course criteria, please meet with me to discuss feasible instructional accommodation. Accommodation can be provided only for a documented disability. Please tell me about such circumstances by the second week of the semester or as soon as possible after a disability is diagnosed. Contact Disability Services for more information: <https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/on-campus/student-support/personal-support/students-with-disabilities.html>. Phone: +64 9 373 7599 ext 82936, email: disability@auckland.ac.nz.

 

*

 

Weekly Schedule  

This schedule is subject to change, depending on our progress. Items listed for a given week are to be read and prepared before the class. At times we'll return to poems from prior weeks and consider them in new ways.

 

Week 1 / 27 July 

Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lie in an Extra-moral sense” (1873), online https://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201/modules/Philosophers/Nietzsche/Truth_and_Lie_in_an_Extra-Moral_Sense.htm

&

Nehaal Bajwa, “Only limestone” in Datableed 2020 online

https://www.datableedzine.com/nehaal-bajwa-issue-12

&

Verity Spott, “From a Reverie,” in Cordite Poetry Review 2020 online

http://cordite.org.au/chapbooks-features/spott/from-a-reverie/

&

Sarah Riggs, “Manifold,” in Seedings 2016 online

https://www.durationpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/seedings1_s-riggs.pdf

Terms: word, metaphor, genre, line, strophe, stanza

 

 

Week 2  / 3 August

Stuart Cooke and Dan Disney “On Australasian Poetics” in The Capilano Review (2015) pp 76-79, online

https://journals.sfu.ca/capreview/index.php/capreview/article/view/1892/1892

&

In the Cordite anthology online:

Tanya Thaweeskulchai, from A Salivating Monstrous Plant, pp 7-11

Matthew Hall, from False Fruits, pp 37-41

http://cordite.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/20-Poets-Cordite-Books.pdf

&

Cilla McQueen, David Eggleton, and essa may ranapiri (Canvas File)

and ranapiri’s poem “I love you more than all the money in the world assembled into a pile the shape of god and set on fire”, p 36 of Saltwater love 1 (2020), https://saltwaterlove.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/1/4/131481363/saltwater_love.pdf  

&

David Kārena-Holmes, from From the Antipodes (Canvas File)

Terms: layout, appropriation, archive, historical looping, translingualism

OQ 1: Jackie L, Nithya N, Katie W, Oscar Z

OQ 2: Paola B, Holly D, Isabelle H, Sam W

 

 

Week 3  / 10 August

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, especially pp 46-51 examples (Canvas File)

&

Scott Jackshaw, four poems in The Capilano Review 3.36, 2018, online

https://journals.sfu.ca/capreview/index.php/capreview/article/view/3259/3257

&

Maged Zaher, from Love Breathes Hard pp 7-12 (2014) (Canvas File)

&

Cecilia Vicuña, ‘Word & Thread’

http://www.ubu.com/ethno/poems/vicuna_word.html

Terms: image, precarity and material signs (“The weaver sees her fiber the way the poet sees her word”), metaphor revisited

OQ 3 Priyanka G, Bonnie H, Parisa T

OQ 4 Jamie L, Freya M, Reece S, Rhia W

 

 

Week 4  / 17 August

Steve McCaffery and bp nichol, from Rational Geomancy 71-72, 88-91 (Canvas File)

&

Javant Biarujia pp 73-77 in Cordite anthology online

http://cordite.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/20-Poets-Cordite-Books.pdf

&

Ya-Wen Ho, "All the identity answers" from the anthology A Transpacific Poetics (Canvas File) and excerpt from Hyperventilating on the threshold of It-hood (Canvas File) (with an audio performance at nzepc http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/features/six-pack-sound/01/ho.asp)

&

Melanie Rands, excerpt from Ship’s Log, from the anthology A Transpacific Poetics (Canvas File)

&

Tom Phillips, from A Humument (Canvas File)

Terms: shaped poetry (alphabet spine), moment poetry (crumpled page of the time of composing), artists books  

OQ 5: Sophie Bannon, David Ciurlionis, Alex Dreyer, Caitlyn Smythe

OQ6: Henry Chignell, Evangeline Gilmour, Elvis Prakash, Sarai McKay

 

 

Week 5 / 24 August

Ian Hamilton Finlay,  "Wave / Rock," "Fisherman’s Cross," "Untitled (wave)," and "Poster Poem," online http://ubu.com/historical/finlay/index.html

&

Duriel E. Harris, “self portrait with black box and open architecture” from No Dictionary of a Living Tongue (2017) (Canvas File)

&

Marcel Bénabou, “Renderings: Disain” (1985, 2014)

http://curamag.com/issues/2014/12/3/renderings-dizains

&

Electronic Literature Collection 2 selections:

Judd Morrissey, The Last Performance (2007),  http://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/morrissey_lastperformance.html

and Alison Clifford, “The Sweet Old Etcetera” (2006), http://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/clifford_the_sweet_old_etcetera.html

Terms: concrete poetry, multimedia, kinetic concrete, digital poetics

OQ 7: Duaa Belgacem, Benjamin Forrester, Tennyson Moore, Meka van Traa

OQ 8: Madelon Casey, Aidan Cullen, Eamonn Tee, Hannah Crowley

 

 

Week 6 / 31 August

Essay 1 draft: 500 words, TWO COPIES printed out and brought to class

Oana Avasilichioaei, “Spelles,” from We, Beasts (Feb 2011 recording) online writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Avasilichioaei.php

&

Jörg Piringer, Coded Poetry and Sound poems, online

https://joerg.piringer.net/index.php?href=codepoetry/codepoetry.xml&mtitle=text

and

https://joerg.piringer.net/index.php?href=soundpoems/soundpoems.xml&mtitle=projects

&

Electronic Literature Collection 3 poetry selections

http://collection.eliterature.org/3/

Terms/concepts: phoneme, code poem, embodiment, digitas

 

Intra-semester study break Monday 7 September-Friday 18 September

 

*Tuesday 15 September: Essay #1 due by 12 noon, Canvas upload

 

Week 7 / 21 September

Pantea Armanfar, “Life of a sundew or sundew of a life” (2020)   

https://plumwoodmountain.com/life-of-a-sundew-or-sundew-of-a-life/

&

Nisha Ramayya, from “Abandonment of Shame” (2017)

SEE CANVAS FILE for the full poem; only part of it included at this Manifold site:

http://www.manifold.group.shef.ac.uk/issue19/Nisha%20Ramayya%20BM.pdf

&

Kim Hyesoon, from Autobiography of Death (2016) (Canvas File)

Terms: poetics, “Author De-Identified,” ecopoetics, translingualism, transnationalism, multiple subjectivities

 

Week 8 / 28 September

Lisa Samuels, “Soft text and the open line” (2018, Axon 8.1) https://axonjournal.com.au/issue-14/soft-text-and-open-line

&

Ronald Johnson, from radi   os (1981; 2005) (Canvas File)

&

Bob Cobbing, Bill Griffiths, and Catherine Walsh, from Other: British and Irish Poetry since 1970 (Canvas File)

&

Alan Halsey, “Plot Likelihoods,” from Selected Poems (2017) (Canvas File)

&

Tim Pa’u, Brian Potiki, Chris Tamaiparea, from Whetu Moana (2003) (Canvas File)

Terms: soft text, omissive poetry, uncertainty, occlusion and open field

OQ 9: Claire Donaldson, Vincent Lam, Victoria Smeeton

OQ 10: Liam McKenzie, Ilena Shadbolt, Sarah Tregaskis, Yvonne Sinclair

 

 

Week 9 / 5 October

Laura Mullen, from Dark Archive (2011) (Canvas File)

&

Camilla Nelson and Steven Hitchins, online version of Translating the coal forests (2015)

https://www.singingapplepress.com/new-products/translating-the-coal-forests

with a reading performance here:

https://literarypocketblog.wordpress.com/books/

&

See also Camilla Nelson and others here:

https://www.singingapplepress.com/exhibitions

Terms: ecopoetics, more-than-human, geoarchive

OQ 11: Christopher Holdsworth, James Moody-Turnwald, Ngaire Smith, Georgia Yurjevic

OQ 12: Gabi Lardies, Toyah Webb, Elias Worrall-Bader

 

 

Week 10 / 12 October

Essay 1 draft: 500 words, TWO COPIES printed out and brought to class ON CAMPUS

This class will focus on your peer review work for Essay 2 and on some course review and discussion of the Week 11 test.

For the assigned reading - Almost Island Issue 7 (Winter 2012), online https://almostisland.com/winter_2012/ - you are welcome to read around in it, but definitely read these three pieces:

The editorial on poetic style https://almostisland.com/winter_2012/editorial.html

A. Rawlings, from The North Suite: https://almostisland.com/winter_2012/special_issue_style/page/from_the_north_suite.html

Ben Lerner, Auto-Tune: https://almostisland.com/winter_2012/special_issue_style/page/auto_tune.html

 

Week 11 / 19 October

TEST 9:10 AM - 10:15 AM. The test is the only activity for this week's class meeting.

 

Week 12 / 26 October LABOUR DAY: No class

 

3 November, Tuesday: Essay #2 due by 12 noon, Canvas upload