Texts
Astley, Neil ed. Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times. Newcastle: Bloodaxe, 2002.
Collins, Billy. Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems. New York: Random House, 2001.
Dove, Rita. Selected Poems. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.
Heaney, Seamus. Opened Ground. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1998.
Hodgen, John. Bread Without Sorrow: Poems. Spokane, Wash.: Lynx House Press, 2001.
Levertov, Denise. Poems: 1968-1972. New York: New Directions Publ. Corp.,1987.
___. This Great Unknowing. New York: New Directions Publ. Corp., 2000.
Lowell, Robert. Selected Poems. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1977.
Monahan, Jean. Believe It Or Not. Alexandria, VA: Orchises Press, 1999.
Pinsky, Robert. The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems, 1966-1996. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1996.
Rich, Adrienne. The Fact of a Doorframe: Poems Selected and New 1950-1984. New York: WW Norton & Company, 1994.
Schwartz, Lloyd. Cairo Traffic. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2000.
Tapscott, Steve. From the Book of Changes. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon, 2002.
Yes, it’s a healthy list. But it’s a big chore we’ve undertaken. I will be asking you to offer regular brief “reflections” on specific poems/poets, to write two short (5 page) and one longer (10-12 page) essay, and to offer a final in-class presentation. Come with questions, energy, a willingness to talk. This could be grand fun – but much of that will depend on you.
Additional Readings
Setting the terms:
in Poetry 180 (NY, Random House, 2003)
- “Introduction”
Billy Collins, in After Confession (edited by Kate Sontag and David Graham; St. Paul MN, Graywolf Press, 2001)
- “My Grandfather’s Tackle Box: The Limitations of Memory-Driven Poetry”
Dana Goia, Can Poetry Matter? (St. Paul MN, Graywolf Press, 1992)
- “Introduction to the Tenth Edition”
- “Can Poetry Matter?”
Seamus Heaney, The Redress of Poetry (NY, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1995)
- “The Redress of Poetry”
- Opened Ground (NY, Farrar Straus, and Giroux, 1998)
- “Crediting Poetry”
Denise Levertov, New and Selected Essays (New Directions pb, 1992)
- “The Poet in the World”
- “Poetry, Prophecy, Survival”
- “A Poet’s View”
Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider (Freedom CA, The Crossing Press, 1996)
- “Poetry Is Not a Luxury”
- “An Interview: Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich”
Robert Lowell, Collected Prose (New York, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1887)
- “Art and Evil”
- “91 Revere Street”
Czeslaw Milosz, The Witness of Poetry (Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1983).
Robert Pinsky, Democracy, Culture, and the Voice of Poetry (Princeton NY, Princeton University Press, 2002)
- “Culture”
- “Social Presence”
- “Models of Culture”
- “Conclusion”
Adrienne Rich, What Is Found There (NY, W. W. Norton, 1993)
- “Woman and Bird”
- “Voices from the Air”
- “The Space for Poetry”
- “Someone Is Writing a Poem”
- “Not How to Write a Poem, But Wherefore”
